Heart of the Hive Inside the Mind of the Honey Bee and the Incredible Life Force of the Colony

by Kearney, Hilary; Tourneret, Eric

• ISBN13: 9781635864830
• ISBN10: 1635864836
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781635864847
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2024-09-03
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
• More Book Details

Summary

Expert beekeeper and swarm-catcher Hilary Kearney offers a unique window into the social lives and biology of these remarkable creatures, accompanied by the photos of world-renowned bee photographer Eric Tourneret.

Readers will be awestruck by the hive as superorganism and how the individual bee lives and behaves within it, perfectly suited to each specific job it performs. From their intricate dances and information-rich pheromones to how they sense and respond to their environment, learn, and remember, this immersive journey into the world of bees offers an entirely new perspective on the wisdom of nature and our relationship to it.

Author Biography

Hilary Kearney is the author of QueenSpotting and the creator of Girl Next Door Honey, a beekeeping business that offers educational opportunities to hundreds of new beekeepers each year. She maintains the blog Beekeeping Like A Girl and her writing on bees has appeared in Modern Farmer and Grit magazines. Her work has been the subject of features in Huffington Post, Vogue, Mother Earth News, and other outlets. She rescues wild bee colonies and manages around 90 hives in her hometown of San Diego, California.
 

Table of Contents

Introduction

1  Life as a Superorganism
How the cooperative nature of the beehive makes honey bees unique

2  Busy as a Bee
How honey bees organize an amazing and ever-shifting workforce

3  What Bees Like
From flowers to fallen trees, things that attract honey bees and help them thrive

4  The Bees' Knees
An up-close look at the honey bee's bodily wonders and how they connect to nature

5  Life as a Bee
How a honey bee sense and experiences the world

6  Buzzwords
The charming language of honey bees

7  Drama Queens
Explosive sex scenes, death matches, and other tantalizing tales from the hive

8  What Bees Don't Like
From bright lights to bananas, things that stress out honey bees and make them defensive

9  Universal Bee
The honey bee's characteristics and why we admire them

Bibliography by Chapter
Acknowledgments
Index