Bookshelf

Vanishing bees – science, politics and honeybee health

Sainath Suryanarayanan and Daniel Lee Kleinman, 159 pages softcover. Rutgers University Press

This is a stimulating discussion around bee biology and human society that seeks to unravel the debate concerning the decline in honey bees. Many views and explanations exist, but why is some expertise regarded as legitimate while the knowledge claims of other stakeholders are ignored? Honey bees face complex interplay between many different factors including habitat loss, nutritional stress and agrochemicals. The established scientific way to research a problem is by reductive approaches that control individual variables to produce results with high levels of certainty. Yet this approach does not suit the highly complex real world where outcomes for honey bees are the result of multitudes of interactions, direct and indirect effects. If you dare to express an opinion on why honey bees are declining, then read this book and check out your perspective!

Bee Quest

Dave Goulson, 233 pages, hardcover. £16.99 from Bees for Development

Everyone who loves bees will love this book. It is highly readable and engaging, as Dave Goulson explains what is happening to bumble bee populations across the world. He describes his journeys to north and south America, as well as nearer to home in the UK. It is shocking to realise that bumblebee populations are becoming extinct, almost without us noticing. One example is the recent, rapid decline of the world’s largest bumblebee species Bombus dahlbomii, the only indigenous bumblebee of southern Argentina and Chile, whose territory is now filled by European buff-tailed bumblebees. The book provides a compelling call to action for everyone to regreen our urban areas and find room for wildlife to persist. Do read it and be well informed about the bumblebee crisis.

Solitary bees

Ted Benton, 202 pages softcover. Pelagic Publishing

We describe honey bees and bumblebees as social bees because they live in complex families. Here in the UK there are around 250 species of solitary bees, i.e. more than ten times the number of social bee species. Yet far less is known about these solitary bees, and few people can identify these bees which are also important pollinators. Solitary bees differ from social bees in not having non-reproductive worker bees. Instead, each female makes a nest, lays eggs, and provisions the nest with food for her offspring. This excellent new Naturalist Handbook provides a way for the interested amateur to begin identifying at least some of these bees.

Honey-maker: how the honey bee worker does what she does

Rosanna L Mattingly, 215 pages softcover. Beargrass Press

Are honey bees one of the most amazing species on this planet, or is it just that we know so much more about them than we do other species? This is another excellent new bee book, all about worker honey bees, explaining in a readable and understandable way, exactly how worker bees achieve their different tasks. The author discusses the physical structure of the bee, and how this form fits its purpose. For example, how does a honey bee keep herself clean? This is a sticky proposition! The answer is that she moistens hairs on her foreleg and uses it to clean her head and front part of her thorax. To clean her antenna, she raises her foreleg and draws the antenna through a tiny notch fitted with a comb. Explanations like this are accompanied by dozens of detailed photographs and diagrams, creating an interesting, reliable and highly educational new book about bees.

The book of bees

Piotr Socha (translated from the Polish by Agnes Monod-Gayraud), 72 pages, hardcover. £16.95 from Bees for Development

Illustrator Piotr Socha has created a marvellous, unique picture book about beekeeping that delights everyone who sees it. It is A3 size and consists of double page illustrations featuring different aspects of bee history and culture, as well as honey bee biology, pollination and much else. Lots of bee education and fun, beautifully delivered.