"Eccentric and unusual with an appealing, gentle charm," raves Kirkus Reviews, in a starred review. Every morning, Fred climbs three flights of stairs—up to his rooftop in Brooklyn, New York—and greets the members of his enormous family: "Good morning, my bees, my darlings!" His honeybee workers are busy—they tend the hive, feed babies, and make wax rooms. They also forage in flowers abloom across Brooklyn... so that, one day, Fred can make his famous honey, something the entire neighborhood looks forward to tasting. Lela Nargi's beautifully written story—accompanied by Kyrsten Brooker's collage-style illustrations—offers an inside look at the life of an endearing beekeeper and the honey-making process. A Junior Library Guild Selection, a Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year, a Cook Prize Honor Book, and a NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book.
"Eccentric and unusual with an appealing, gentle charm," raves Kirkus Reviews, in a starred review. Every morning, Fred climbs three flights of stairs—up to his rooftop in Brooklyn, New York—and greets the members of his enormous family: "Good morning, my bees, my darlings!" His honeybee workers are busy—they tend the hive, feed babies, and make wax rooms. They also forage in flowers abloom across Brooklyn... so that, one day, Fred can make his famous honey, something the entire neighborhood looks forward to tasting. Lela Nargi's beautifully written story—accompanied by Kyrsten Brooker's collage-style illustrations—offers an inside look at the life of an endearing beekeeper and the honey-making process. A Junior Library Guild Selection, a Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year, a Cook Prize Honor Book, and a NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book.
Filled with more than 150 beautiful, crystal-clear photos and bee fun facts, The Book of Bees is the ultimate guide for kids to explore the lives of these stunning insects and learn about their critical role in fostering a sustainable, healthy Earth. Did you know there are blue bees and green bees? Or that one species of bee nests in snail shells? Or that many bees don’t live in hives? With more than 20,000 species of bees worldwide, there’s more to bees than just honey! The Book of Bees gives curious kids a close-up view of busy buzzers from around the world. From the familiar Western honeybee to the extra-large Himalayan giant honeybee and Australia’s vibrant neon cuckoo bee, these pages are packed with detailed photos and fascinating facts on more than 50 species of bees. In-depth species profiles help you identify bees, learn about bee-havior, and find your favorites! And special features examine topics like hive life, nest cells, and other pollinators. The world of bees is exciting and surprising—and The Book of Bees will leave you buzzing!
Find out where honey comes from as Grandpa the Beeman teaches the basics of beekeeping to his young grandson. This rhyming story includes 7 pages of educational endnotes full of essential facts about bees, beekeeping, honey, and the vital part that bees play in the natural world. Includes a honey muffin recipe on the final page!
How honeybees make collective decisions—and what we can learn from this amazing democratic process Honeybees make decisions collectively—and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision making. A remarkable and richly illustrated account of scientific discovery, Honeybee Democracy brings together, for the first time, decades of Seeley's pioneering research to tell the amazing story of house hunting and democratic debate among the honeybees. In the late spring and early summer, as a bee colony becomes overcrowded, a third of the hive stays behind and rears a new queen, while a swarm of thousands departs with the old queen to produce a daughter colony. Seeley describes how these bees evaluate potential nest sites, advertise their discoveries to one another, engage in open deliberation, choose a final site, and navigate together—as a swirling cloud of bees—to their new home. Seeley investigates how evolution has honed the decision-making methods of honeybees over millions of years, and he considers similarities between the ways that bee swarms and primate brains process information. He concludes that what works well for bees can also work well for people: any decision-making group should consist of individuals with shared interests and mutual respect, a leader's influence should be minimized, debate should be relied upon, diverse solutions should be sought, and the majority should be counted on for a dependable resolution. An impressive exploration of animal behavior, Honeybee Democracy shows that decision-making groups, whether honeybee or human, can be smarter than even the smartest individuals in them.
For more than sixty years Charles Mraz has brought the benefits of apitherapy (bee-venom therapy) to thousands of individuals. He pioneered the use of this technique to treat autoimmune diseases, particularly arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
Honey bees—and the qualities associated with them—have quietly influenced American values for four centuries. During every major period in the country's history, bees and beekeepers have represented order and stability in a country without a national religion, political party, or language. Bees in America is an enlightening cultural history of bees and beekeeping in the United States. Tammy Horn, herself a beekeeper, offers a varied social and technological history from the colonial period, when the British first introduced bees to the New World, to the present, when bees are being used by the American military to detect bombs. Early European colonists introduced bees to the New World as part of an agrarian philosophy borrowed from the Greeks and Romans. Their legacy was intended to provide sustenance and a livelihood for immigrants in search of new opportunities, and the honey bee became a sign of colonization, alerting Native Americans to settlers' westward advance. Colonists imagined their own endeavors in terms of bees' hallmark traits of industry and thrift and the image of the busy and growing hive soon shaped American ideals about work, family, community, and leisure. The image of the hive continued to be popular in the eighteenth century, symbolizing a society working together for the common good and reflecting Enlightenment principles of order and balance. Less than a half-century later, Mormons settling Utah (where the bee is the state symbol) adopted the hive as a metaphor for their protected and close-knit culture that revolved around industry, harmony, frugality, and cooperation. In the Great Depression, beehives provided food and bartering goods for many farm families, and during World War II, the War Food Administration urged beekeepers to conserve every ounce of beeswax their bees provided, as more than a million pounds a year were being used in the manufacture of war products ranging from waterproofing products to tape. The bee remains a bellwether in modern America. Like so many other insects and animals, the bee population was decimated by the growing use of chemical pesticides in the 1970s. Nevertheless, beekeeping has experienced a revival as natural products containing honey and beeswax have increased the visibility and desirability of the honey bee. Still a powerful representation of success, the industrious honey bee continues to serve both as a source of income and a metaphor for globalization as America emerges as a leader in the Information Age.
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.
A business parable that teaches the value of cultivating multiple streams of income—the surest, most achievable means of creating generational wealth. The Honey Bee tells the story of Noah—a disappointed, disaffected salesman who feels like his life is going nowhere until the day he has a chance encounter with a man named Tom Barnham, the beekeeper. In his charming, down-home way, Tom the “Bee Man” teaches Noah and his wife Emma how to grow their personal wealth using the lessons he learned from his beekeeping passion. Full of concrete lessons delivered through chapter after chapter of engaging vignettes, each of which includes actionable advice for new or aspiring entrepreneurs. Workbook-style sections at the end of each chapter help bring the lessons home, including questions to help you apply the lessons to your own business, and links to rich digital resources for even more information on how to get started creating your own multiple streams of income.
Buzz from flower to flower with a sweet honeybee in this timely, clever, and breathtakingly gorgeous picture book from critically acclaimed author Kirsten Hall and award-winning illustrator Isabelle Arsenault. Bzzz… What’s that? Do you hear it? You’re near it. It’s closer, it’s coming, it’s buzzing, it’s humming… A BEE! With zooming, vibrant verse by Kirsten Hall and buzzy, beautiful illustrations by Isabelle Arsenault, this celebration of the critically important honeybee is a honey-sweet treasure of a picture book.
