In the summer of 2016 retired broadcaster Paul Ashton made an astounding discovery at a car boot sale in Sussex. He found a copy of Sherlock Holmes's Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, and bought it for £2. No other copy of this legendary volume – the only book Holmes wrote – has ever come to light. The Handbook is the journal kept by Holmes from 1904 to 1912. 1904 was the year he retired from active investigation and moved to a farmhouse in East Dean. In 1912 he came out of retirement and left East Dean in order to outwit the German spy network in Britain on the eve of World War I. The journal is, of course, principally the record of his bee-keeping activities, but Holmes has also included a wealth of astonishing information – some of it highly indiscreet – about the following: – his marriage to Mrs Hudson – their social life in Sussex – his meetings with Lenin, Pablo Picasso, Edward VII, Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw and Sigmund Freud, among other distinguished figures – two investigations that he carried out, even though officially retired – two attempts that were made on his life – his involvement in the Jack the Ripper murders, the Dr Crippen affair, the theft of the Mona Lisa, and the Siege of Sidney Street – his correspondence with some of the famous scientists of the day – his active support of the Suffragette movement – the regular updating of his casebooks of famous criminals of the nineteenth century – a number of photographs, some taken by him and four actually showing him – the steady deterioration of his health over the period. Both the owner of the Handbook and the publisher are honoured to be able to make this unique treasure available to the general public.

"Honey has been waiting almost ten million years for a good biography," writes Holley Bishop. Bees have been making this food on Earth for hundreds of millennia, but we humans started recording our fascination with it only in the past few thousand years -- painting bees and hives on cave and temple walls and papyrus scrolls, revering them in poetry and art, even worshipping these amazing little insects as gods. From the temples of the Nile to the hives behind the author's own house, people have had a long, rapturous love affair with the beehive and the seductive, addictive honey it produces. Combining passionate research, rich detail, and fascinating anecdote, Holley Bishop's Robbing the Bees is an in-depth, sumptuous look at the oldest, most delectable food in the world. Part biography, part history, Robbing the Bees is also a celebration, a love letter to bees and their magical produce. Honey has played significant and varied roles in civilization: it is so sweet that bacteria can't survive in it, so it was our first food preservative and all-purpose wound salve. Honey wine, or mead, was the intoxicant of choice long before beer or wine existed. Hindus believe honey leads to a long life; Mohammed looked to honey as a remedy for all illness. Virgil; Aristotle; Pythagoras; Gregor Mendel; Sylvia Plath's father, Otto; and Sir Edmund Hillary are among the famous beekeepers and connoisseurs who have figured in honey's past and shaped its present. To help navigate the worlds and cultures of honey, Holley Bishop -- beekeeper, writer, and honey aficionado -- apprentices herself to a modern guide and expert, professional beekeeper Donald Smiley, who harvests tupelo honey from hundreds of hives in the remote town of Wewahitchka, Florida. Bishop chronicles Smiley's day-to-day business as he robs his bees in the steamy Florida panhandle and provides an engaging exploration of the lively science, culture, and lore that surround each step of the beekeeping process and each stage of bees' lives. Interspersed throughout the narrative are the author's lyrical reflections on her own beekeeping experiences, the business and gastronomical world of honey, the myriad varieties of honey (as distinct as the provenance of wine), as well as illustrations, historical quotes, and recipes -- ancient, contemporary, and some of the author's own creations.