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Langstroth revolutionized the beekeeping industry by using bee space in his top opened hive. In the summer of 1851 he found that, by leaving an even, approximately bee-sized space between the top of the frames holding the honeycomb and the flat coverboard lying above, he was able to quite easily remove the latter, which was normally well cemented to the frames with propolis making separation hard to achieve. Later he had the idea to use this discovery to make the frames themselves easily removable. He found that, if he left a small space (less than 1/4 inch or 6.4 mm) between the combs, or between the combs and the sides of his hives, the bees would fill it with propolis thus cementing the combs into the hive. On the other hand, when he left a larger space (more than 3/8 inch or 9.5 mm) the bees would fill it with comb which had a similar effect. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Instruction, Nature, Science

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volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Winter by William Shakespeare. This poem is from Love's Labour's Lost. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for December 27th, 2009.....

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Humor, Nature, Play, Poetry

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volunteers bring you 24 recordings of The Despairing Lover by William Walsh. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for March 11, 2012. William Walsh was an English poet and critic. It is not as a poet, however, but as the friend and correspondent of Alexander Pope that Walsh is remembered. Mr Walsh used to tell me, Pope says, that there was one way left of excelling; for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct, and he desired me to make that my study and my aim. (Summary from Wikipedia )...

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Humor, Nature, Romance, Satire, Poetry

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We also have a religion which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us their children. It teaches us to be thankful, to be united, and to love one another! We never quarrel about religion....

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Nature, History, Religion, Westerns

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volunteers bring you 22 recordings of The Vagabond by Robert Louis Stevenson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 22, 2012. The Vagabond appeared in Stevenson's Songs of Travel and Other Verses, which was published after his death. It expresses the love of travel and adventure he always nurtured. Near the end of his life Stevenson emigrated to Samoa and became very involved in local politics, severely criticising the European officials he encountered. He was buried close to his new home, in the land he had come to love. (Summary by Lucy Perry)...

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Nature, Advice, Psychology, Poetry

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volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Freshness of Poetic Perception by Paul Hamilton Hayne. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 7, 2012. Paul Hamilton Hayne was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He left his law practice to persue his literary interests. He became a literaey critic and magazine editor in Grovetown, Georgia, where he lived until his death. (Summary by David Lawrence)...

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Poetry, Nature, Philosophy

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We are weary of witnessing the greed, selfishness and cruelty of civilized man toward the wild creatures of the earth. We are sick of tales of slaughter and pictures of carnage. It is time for a sweeping Reformation; and that is precisely what we now demand. -William Temple Hornaday...

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Nature, Animals

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Orphaned Mary Lennox is sent to live with her uncle in Yorkshire, and finds herself in a house full of secrets and mysteries.

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Children, Nature, Philosophy, Mystery, Animals

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volunteers bring you 17 recordings of The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for September 30, 2012. Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe was the foremost Elizabethan tragedian of his day.[2] He greatly influenced William Shakespeare, who was born in the same year as Marlowe and who rose to become the pre-eminent Elizabethan playwright after Marlowe's mysterious early death. (Summary by Wikipedia )...

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Animals, Nature, Romance, Literature, Poetry

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A book about dinosaurs written for children. In short, easy to read chapters designed to keep the interest of juvenile readers. (Summary by Guero)

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Children, Nature

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This book contains the record of a few of the many happy days and novel experiences which I have had in the wilds. For more than twenty years it has been my good fortune to live most of the time with nature, on the mountains of the West. I have made scores of long exploring rambles over the mountains in every season of the year, a nature-lover charmed with the birds and the trees. On my later excursions I have gone alone and without firearms. During three succeeding winters, in which I was a Government Experiment Officer and called the State Snow Observer, I scaled many of the higher peaks of the Rockies and made many studies on the upper slopes of these mountains. (Summary from the Preface of Wild Life on the Rockies )...

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Nature, Travel, Biography

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The Chemical History of a Candle is a series of 6 lectures on chemistry presented to a juvenile audience in 1848. Taught by Michael Faraday - a chemist and physist, and regarded as the best experimentalist in the history of science - it is probably the most famous of the Christmas Lectures of the Royal Society. Taking the everyday burning of a candle as a starting point, Faraday spans the arc from combustion and its products, via the components of water and air (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon), back to the type of combustion that happens in the human body when we breathe. The final lecture On Platinum describes a then new method to produce large quantities of Platinum. It was delivered before the Royal Institution on February 22, 1861. (Summary by Availle.)...

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Nature, Science

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A collection of short nonfiction works in the public domain. The essays, speeches and reports included in this collection were independently selected by the readers, and the topics encompass history, government, military history, science, philosophy, sports, nature and religion. (summary by J. M. Smallheer)...

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History, Nature, Philosophy, Religion, War stories, Science, Politics

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In By Pond and River , another of Arabella Buckley's wonderful science books for children, she explains the habitats of ponds and rivers, exposing children to the animals and plant life that are found there. (Summary by Laura Caldwell)...

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Science, Nature, Children, Animals

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If this book were written today, it would be called The Story of the World's Rubbish. That may not sound a promising subject for a book, but we are taken on a journey all over the world (and beyond) to explain the many varieties of dust and refuse - animal, vegetable and mineral - how it is made both by man and by nature, what happens to it, and why we need it. We find that recycling is nothing new: man has been doing it for centuries, and nature has been doing it for billions of years. As every schoolboy knows, 'matter is neither created nor destroyed', so it stands to reason that every particle of it must be somewhere. This study of our knowledge of the earth was written for the layman before most of the -ologies were even a twinkle in a professor's eye. Geology, meteorology, hydrology, biology, glaciology and even sociology and anthropology all have their place in this readable and enjoyable tour of the earth's 'lumber room'. Though some of the science is out of date - it was written, for instance, 80 years before the theory of plate tectonics was understood - the author admits candidly when the science of the day does not yet pr...

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Nature, Science

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volunteers bring you 17 recordings of Growing Old by Matthew Arnold. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for April 17, 2011. Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterized as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. (summary from Wikipedia)...

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Instruction, Nature, Philosophy, Poetry

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Henry Gray's classic anatomy textbook was first published in 1858 and has been in continuous publication ever since, revised and expanded through many successive editions. This recording is of the public-domain 1918 US edition (some information may be outdated). The illustrations can be found in the online text at bartleby.com. For the recording, we have divided the book into five parts. Part 4 includes Neurology, the Organs of the Senses, and the Common Integument. (summary by Laurie Anne Walden)...

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Science, Nature, Instruction

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volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Ballad of the Tempest by James T. Fields. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for July 4th, 2010.

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Adventure, Nature, Religion, Sea stories, Poetry

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This is not a manual of instruction for orchid growers; though there are many hints on cultivation, and a few paragraphs on how to hybridize. The author is just an enthusiastic amateur orchid lover. He takes the reader on a wander through the dangers and consequences of hunting orchids in the tropical jungles of the nineteenth century, and chats about the extreme peculiarities of orchid growth, behaviour and structure, colouring the essays with his own experiences and with his delight in cultivating these beautiful plants. Beware! A new hobby beckons! (Summary by Peter Yearsley)...

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Instruction, Nature

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Wordsworth was a defining member of the English Romantic Movement. Like other Romantics, Wordsworth’s personality and poetry were deeply influenced by his love of nature, especially by the sights and scenes of the Lake Country, in which he spent most of his mature life. A profoundly earnest and sincere thinker, he displayed a high seriousness tempered with tenderness and a love of simplicity. (summary from Bartleby.com)...

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Poetry, Nature, Romance