Book Review: Bee-Skep Making by Chris Park

Introduction

I have a skep for catching swarms but I’ve never tried to make one, or keep honey bees in one. I also hang mine from a tree during swarm season as a bivouac lure. I once carried a skep to New York as hand luggage which was an interesting experience and attracted some attention.

Local beekeeper and friend, the late Sandy Davidson was a skilled skep maker and he donated a magnificent skep to Bees for Development in 2019. This was the one that travelled across the Atlantic with me and was sold at silent auction to a very nice beekeeper called Colin who brought his family to visit me for the day a few weeks ago https://www.beelistener.co.uk/honey-bees/scottish-straw-skep-travels-to-the-usa/

Bryce Reynard from Inverness is another local expert skep maker and he also crafted a splendid skep from marram grass that ended up across the Atlantic. It was commissioned by the Scottish Beekeepers’ Association as a gift to Professor Tom Seeley when he came to speak at our Elgin convention in 2016.

Although an admirer of the pleasing physical appearance of well-made skeps, I knew very little about the history, folklore and making of them till I read this amazing book that I have just reviewed for Bloomsbury Press. As well as being informative, it is a delightful and entertaining read.

Review

Title: Bee-Skep Making: Heritage, Folklore and How to Make and Use Your Own Skeps

Author: Chris Park

Publisher: Herbert Press Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2026

ISBN: HB: 978-1-78994-330-3

Hardback A4, 160 pages, cost: £35

Available: Bloomsbury, Northern Bee Books and other bookshops

Bee-Skep Making is a well-written and skilfully crafted book. The author Chris Park is a beekeeper and world-renowned skep maker who teaches this ancient craft and has made skeps for film sets. He has created a fascinating book that not only guides the reader concisely through skep making, beekeeping, honey extraction, wax cleaning and mead making, but gives detailed accounts of the history and traditions of this almost lost art.

There are nine chapters with a glossary, bibliography and index at the end. The introduction includes some basic bee biology which will be easily understood by the general reader. Bee-Skep Making is not a textbook—it is both an entertaining and instructive work that will delight beekeepers as much as it will the general public interested in a heritage craft that is clearly making a comeback thanks to passionate enthusiasts like Park.

It is beautifully illustrated with many colourful photographs and reproduced paintings and drawings. Extensive research informs the first three chapters covering the history of ancient myths, folklore, superstitions and symbolism relating to bees and the hive. The third chapter is dedicated to author and musician Revd Charles Butler who first published his famous book, The Female Monarchie, in 1623 and is deemed the ‘father of English beekeeping’.

Park draws on his extensive experience and knowledge in the subsequent chapters as he describes how to make a skep with the additional roof like protection called a hackle, manage honey bees in them, and make amazing things with the hive products.
This book is good value and I can recommend it to anyone who enjoys a journey back into the past and an adventure into the future. People who truly value honey bees and the natural world will appreciate Park’s philosophy of keeping things simple, buying local products and using natural materials. Park is passionate about nature-based beekeeping and we can learn a lot from him. Some creative readers may even feel inspired to try skep making and beekeeping themselves.

Park endorses current best practice beekeeping advice to use locally adapted bees. However, while “Yorkshire-bred bees will usually have longer hair than those native to Somerset” may be true, we currently have no scientific evidence of this. However, recent research shows how, in Ireland, the native bee, Apis mellifera mellifera, differs from its counterpart in Europe and is indeed hairier. So perhaps a future similar study replicated in the UK will show similar differences

Park ends his lovely book on a positive note by sharing with us that he feels sure that honey bees will be on this planet long after we have gone. He refers to the melodramatic and fictitious warning from Einstein about bees disappearing first then mankind not long after. Dr Keith Delaplane debunked that myth some years ago and reminds us that Einstein was a physicist not an entomologist and that the staple foods we eat are all wind pollinated. But what a tedious diet we would have if bees disappeared.