Product Description

Ever since men first hunted for honeycomb in rocks and daubed pictures of it on cave walls, the honeybee has been seen as one of the wonders of nature: social, industrious, beautiful, terrifying. No other creature has inspired in humans an identification so passionate, persistent or fantastical.

In this gem of a book, award-winning writer Bee Wilson explores the magical world of the honeybee. From the hive to honey, from beekeepers to honeymooners, via Aristotle, Shakespeare, Napoleon and Sherlock Holmes, here is a book that delights and surprises at every turn. And there is even a recipe or two. (20040918)

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12440 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

The Times
‘Richly informative and beautifully written’

Review
'Can hardly be bettered.' (Guardian 20050911)

‘Fascinating, careful, witty and intelligent ... Riveting ... Almost any paragraph chosen at random is entertaining’ (Prue Leith, New Statesman 20040829)

‘Richly informative and beautifully written’ (The Times 20041128)

'Erudite and elegant ... Bee Wilson writes fluently and engagingly and she manages to present a great deal of curious information in a form as easy to swallow as a spoonful of the finest Attic honey ... The book is also exceptionally pleasing to look at and hold.' (Tom Fort, Sunday Telegraph 20041128)

'Entertaining and thoroughly worthwhile' (Sunday Times 20041128)

'Fascinating' (Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times 20041128)

'Erudite, informative, accurate and a delight to read.' (The Times Literary Supplement 20041128)

‘Wilson has a fine eye for character sketches’

(The Times 20041128)

‘For a moment you may feel, as I did, that part of Wilson’s research for this book involved turning into a bee for a few days ... Amazing.’ — Nick Lezard

(Guardian 20041128)

‘There are delights and surprises on virtually every page of this gem of a book’

(Sunday Telegraph 20041128)

‘Wilson’s sprightly hymn to the honeybee ... conveys ... the marvel, complexity and ultimate unknowability that has made the beehive such a fascination

(Independent 20041128)

'She manages to present a great deal of information in a form as easy to swallow as a spoonful of honey.' (Tom Fort, Sunday Telegraph 20041128)

'Buzzes with info and has the prettiest dust-jacket of the third millennium' (Barry Humphries, Sunday Telegraph 20041128)

‘Endlessly fascinating’ (Mail on Sunday )

'A riveting read . . .this beguiling book is more a history of ideas than an actual study . . .buzzing with fascinating facts'

(BBC Gardener's World Magazine )

'Bee Wilson recounts all the weird and wonderful things people have believed about bees'

(History Today )

'Juicy reading . . .worth buying for the illustration on p. 204 alone'

(The Spectator )

'Bee Wilson . . .connects readers' imaginations with their salivary glands'

(New Statesman )

‘A brilliant examination of a natural phenomenon we all take for granted’

(Sunday Express )

'Delightful'

(Economist )

‘Fascinating and readable. Wilson writes with flair and wit about everything from Pliny to pollination; her love of honey in all its sheer sensuousness shines through’

(Scotsman )

'Can hardly be bettered . . .Principally a writer on food, Wilson none the less knows a lot about keeping honeybees, and also about their biology and natural history, waxworks and candles, and the changing shape of the beehive'

(The Guardian )

'Beautifully written and absorbing'

(New Statesman )

Prue Leith, New Statesman
‘Fascinating, careful, witty and intelligent … Riveting … Almost any paragraph chosen at random is entertaining’

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Customer Reviews

Getting a buzz
Moving to a city meant abandoning my bees. The loss of truly fresh honey was aggravating by wondering if the bees "knew" me and felt the absence. Such feelings are examined in historical detail in this delightful book. "Bee" [Beatrice] Wilson's career as a food journalist has provided an excellent background for this history. She has a talent for reaching a wide audience, with a good balance for history, personality and shared interests. It's almost impossible to finish this account without wanting to rush to Paris' Maison du Miel [or its local quivalent] and browse through the selection of honey sitting on the shelves waiting to pleasure your palate.

The title is an indicator - how we've related to bees, their habits and their delicious product has a long history. Bees are the one social animal we've had a deep relationship with. They've provided templates to explain or guide human society - although we've been almost always wrong in how their society forms and operates. Early civilisations viewed them as warrior monarchies, ruled by a "king" driving, or being supported by, a soldier caste. Wilson examines six areas where humans have dealt with bees as their counterparts: work, sex, politics, food and drink, life and death. In their most intimate relationship, she adds the beekeeper as her conclusion.

Wilson explains how early commentators viewed the drone-worker relationship as symbolic of human society. Even today's leading British entomologist, Francis Ratnieks, compares the partitioning of roles to "the efficiency of the modern supermarket". The hive is actually superior in that it needs no central management to control events. The constant activity, however, has led many societies to adopt the hive as a symbol of "industriousness". Perhaps the most famous example is Brigham Young's Mormon "Deseret" colony. The bees showed how cooperation could accomplish anything. Wilson, in contrast, shows how worker bees go through successive levels of participation in simply doing the same thing over and over through the generations. Even a new colony simply repeats an age-old process.

The mystery of how bees procreate, mixed with the various views of how colonies were organised, led to some bizarre interpretations. So long as the "monarch" was seen as male, bee-human comparisons seemed apt. When it was discovered that the big bee, the centre of so much hive activity, was female ature itself appeared overturned. The idea of a single female, adored by crowds of "gallants" was abhorrent. That didn't prevent commentators from rationalising the arrangement.

Wilson recounts the views of numerous observers of apian life. Certain figures stand out, of course. Dutchman Jan Swammerdam had determined the sex of the hive "monarch". A dedicated naturalist, Swammerdam made meticulous drawings of bee anatomy, some still unmatched today. In Britain, it's Charles Butler who spanned the late 16th and early 17th Centuries, was the first serious observer of bee society. Karl von Frisch, of course, is honoured as the man who revealed how bees communicate, and that they perceive flowers in the ultraviolet part of the light spectrum. His discovery of the "waggle dance" as a means of imparting location of food sources among worker bees ultimately granted him a Nobel Prize. That he began his work refuting a false notion of colour perception in animals has a touch of
irony.

Wilson worked hard to give us this excellent summary of an insect essential to humanity. Pollinating orchards, providing a non-fattening sweetener, giving us valuable insights to Nature's processes, bees have gained a spirited champion with this book. Not a stolid academic study, the author graces her lively text with illustrations, photographs and a thorough bibliography of her research. She also rekindles my longing for a return to beekeeping and fresh honey. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

readable
I'm studying politics at university and I don't usually have much time for outside reading. But my aunt gave me this book as an early christmas present, and I read it straight away. It really caught my attention. There's lots of interesting stories, like about how they used to think bees were all male even the Queen. It shows you how the politics of the time affected how they saw the bees. Now I'm making some of the honey cake recipes. It's a really nice book, it teaches you a lot about the past but not in a heavy way.