Two great reads

Communication Between Honeybees: More than Just a Dance in the Dark

By Jürgen Tautz

During the history of bee research, scientists have peered deep into the inner life of bee colonies and learned much about the behaviour of these insects. Above all, the bee waggle dance has become a famous and extensively discussed phenomenon. Nevertheless, recent insights reveal that while bees are social insects inside the hive, they also communicate very effectively with one another outside the hive. In this book renowned German bee researcher Jürgen Tautz provides an entertaining, fresh and enlightening account for both lay and professional readers, not only about the fascinating dance language but also about additional remarkable phenomena concerning information exchange between bees.

From the author of the bestseller The Buzz about Bees, new book Communication Between Honeybees assembles, for the first time, a complete overview of how bees understand one another. Although communication biology research on bees has so far concentrated largely on events within the hive, this book now also directs attention to how bees communicate in the field outside the hive.

The reader learns which steps new bee recruits take to reach the feeder which a dancing forager has advertised. The book analyses the status of work on the bee dance published over the last 100 years and orders the essential findings as building blocks into a coherent new concept of how bees find their target. In addition, the historical survey of research on the ‘Bee Language’ explains how several contradictory and incomplete hypotheses can still survive.

This is a fresh point of view on one of the most remarkable behavioural performances in the animal kingdom, leading to previously unknown insights. Such new perspectives clearly reveal both how large the gaps in our knowledge still are in relation to the language of bees, and which direction research must take to complete the picture of one of the most impressive behavioural accomplishments in animals.

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz is a bee expert, sociobiologist, animal behaviourist and emeritus professor at the Biozentrum, University of Würzburg. He is the Chair of the Bee Research Würzburg e.V. and the Head of the interdisciplinary project Honey Bee Online Studies (HOBOS) and the follow-up project we4bee. He is a worldleading, widely-published scientist and a gifted communicator of science. His writing and popular lectures have twice been honoured by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) who named him among the best scientists in Europe in communicating science to the public. He is passionate about popularising science and making it accessible to all.

Springer | Hardcover | £22.99 | 978-3 030 99483 9

The Two-Headed Whale: Life and Loss in the Deepest Oceans

By Sandy Winterbottom

When Sandy Winterbottom embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure to the Antarctic in 2016, she expected to find peace, stillness, and true wilderness. Feeling the effects of mental illness in her family and overworked in her career, Sandy booked a sixweek trip sailing the Southern Ocean in search of much-needed solace and escape. As the only unsettled continent on the planet, Antarctica brings to mind ideas of pristine nature, robust wildlife, and true separation from humanity. Yet, signs of human activity were all around her. The abandoned whaling station overtaken by boisterous fur seals at South Georgia piqued her curiosity, driving what would then become an incredible project exposing the dark history and brutality of Scotland’s twenty-first century whaling industry.

Exploring the whaling station with new crewmates and friends, Sandy stumbled upon something which challenged her staunch view of the callousness the whaling industry and those who perpetuated it¬. A small grave belonging to a 19-year-old boy from Edinburgh who had lost his life here, Anthony Ford, remained with her long after leaving the island. This unique book is at once a travelogue, nature writing, historical exposé, and the compelling, compassionate reconstruction of Anthony’s life and experiences aboard the Southern Venturer, one of the Salvesen Company’s floating factory whaling ships in the 1950’s. Sandy’s and Anthony’s alternating perspectives bring together past and present, connecting two lives and experiences which might have never been united if not for the vast, stunning seascape of the Antarctic.

The Two-Headed Whale is as accessible as it is intriguing, as the reader discovers new information alongside Sandy and faces both hardship and hope alongside Anthony. The narrative does not shy away from portraying the realities of life for the average labourer aboard a whaling ship and exploitation of both worker and whale is painfully felt. Yet, Anthony is not treated as a mere martyr for environmental justice or worker’s rights– his personality, his relationships, his plans and aspirations are represented with the utmost care and respect.

Themes of the importance of mental health and wellbeing echo throughout this story, as Sandy gains a newfound clarity and motivation from her visit to Antarctica, even if it doesn’t present in the way she had anticipated. Sandy brings light to a vital part of Scotland’s history, one that should be known, and ties it into our overall responsibility to confront the climate crisis. As Sandy faces her own ecological and personal grief, compounded by Anthony’s isolation in South Georgia, we are left with a powerful sense of loss and love for our planet and our home.

The Two-Headed Whale is published by Birlinn. (£14.99, hardback) www.birlinn.co.uk