The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild

Thomas D. Seeley

Published by Princeton University Press 2019

The Lives of Bees

The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild

Thomas D. Seeley

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691189383

Overview
Contents

About this book

This magesterial book by the world authority on honeybees tells the untold story of how honeybees live in the wild and how this understanding changes our view of honeybees and how we might manage this species, which is of course critically important to humans.

How the lives of wild honey bees offer vital lessons for saving the world’s managed bee colonies

Humans have kept honey bees in hives for millennia, yet only in recent decades have biologists begun to investigate how these industrious insects live in the wild. The Lives of Bees is Thomas Seeley’s captivating story of what scientists are learning about the behavior, social life, and survival strategies of honey bees living outside the beekeeper’s hive—and how wild honey bees may hold the key to reversing the alarming die-off of the planet’s managed honey bee populations.

Seeley, a world authority on honey bees, sheds light on why wild honey bees are still thriving while those living in managed colonies are in crisis. Drawing on the latest science as well as insights from his own pioneering fieldwork, he describes in extraordinary detail how honey bees live in nature and shows how this differs significantly from their lives under the management of beekeepers. Seeley presents an entirely new approach to beekeeping—Darwinian Beekeeping—which enables honey bees to use the toolkit of survival skills their species has acquired over the past thirty million years, and to evolve solutions to the new challenges they face today. He shows beekeepers how to use the principles of natural selection to guide their practices, and he offers a new vision of how beekeeping can better align with the natural habits of honey bees.

Engagingly written and deeply personal, The Lives of Bees reveals how we can become better custodians of honey bees and make use of their resources in ways that enrich their lives as well as our own.

Author / Editor information

Thomas D. Seeley is the Horace White Professor in Biology at Cornell University. He is the author of Following the Wild Bees, Honeybee Democracy, and Honeybee Ecology (all Princeton) as well as The Wisdom of the Hive. He lives in Ithaca, New York.

Reviews

"A wealth of information about honeybees based on decades of scientific research."

"[The Lives of Bees] both celebrates and chronicles the natural history of the honey bee."---Barry Silverstein, Foreword Reviews

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
1. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Bees in the Forest, Still Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
3. Leaving the Wild Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
4. Are Honey Bees Domesticated? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
5. The Nest Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
6. Annual Cycle Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	140
7. Colony Reproduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
8. Food Collection Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
9. Temperature Control Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
10. Colony Defense Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243
11. Darwinian Beekeeping Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337
Illustration Credits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	341
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	349