With full captions explaining how bees live, function communally,
communicate, feed, and reproduce, Bees is an insightful examination in
150 outstanding color photographs of mankind's favorite insect.
Honey bees, bumblebees, mining bees, dwarf bees, carpenter, leafcutter,
and mason bees: bees come in many different types, with more than 16,000
species worldwide. The bees we are most familiar with, bumblebees and
honey bees, live in colonies and play a major role in pollinating the
crops, plants, and flowers around us. And bees produce honey, reputedly
the food of the gods--a function of bees' lifecycle, which humans have
exploited for millennia. Many bees today are domesticated, and
beekeepers collect honey, beeswax, pollen, and royal jelly from hives
for human use. A typical bee produces a teaspoon of honey in her
lifetime. Bees can communicate many ways through the movement of their
wings and bodies, most famously with the "waggle dance," where they make
figure-eight circles to let other bees know the direction and distance
of nectar. Bees is an outstanding collection of photographs showing
these fascinating insects in their natural habitat.
