The Honey Bee - (Collins New Naturalist Library) by Norman Carreck (Paperback)

About the Book

The honey bee has had an intimate and continuous association with mankind for thousands of years, and remains of vital importance today, both for humanity and for all life on Earth.

Book Synopsis

The honey bee has had an intimate and continuous association with mankind for thousands of years, and remains of vital importance today, both for humanity and for all life on Earth.

This timely addition to the New Naturalist series will aim to explore the natural history of honey bees, firstly as individuals, and then to consider them in the wider context as part of a complex society of perhaps 50,000 individuals without any kind of 'leader'. The enormous economic importance of honey bees needs to be considered in terms of the pollination of economically important crops and of wild plants, and the production of hive products with their ever increasing uses, not least in the field of human medicine. Recent declines in honey bee populations around the world have drawn attention to their pests and diseases, and have focused attention on the breeding of 'superior' strains of bees, better adapted to modern conditions. The honey bee has also played an important part in art, literature and folklore throughout the world from its depiction in prehistoric cave paintings, through its important symbolism of industry in heraldry, yet it has now become a creature to be feared in certain modern low budget Hollywood films. Finally the conservation of honey bees will be considered in the light of the major changes in land use that have occurred throughout the world over recent decades and the ever increasing international trade of bees and hive products.

Review Quotes

Praise for the New Naturalist series:

'Taken either individually or as a whole, they are one of the proudest achievements of modern publishing' The Sunday Times

'The series is an amazing achievement' The Times Literary Supplement

'The books are glorious to own' Independent

About the Author

Norman Carreck has been keeping bees since the age of 15. He studied Agricultural Science at Nottingham University and has worked as an official beekeeper, with responsibility for maintaining about 80 colonies of honey bees, while also researching pollination ecology, bee behaviour, bee pathology and forage for bees. Since 2008 he has carried out research at the University of Sussex on bee breeding and pesticides and bees, worked as Senior Editor of the Journal of Apicultural Research and been employed as Science Director of the International Bee Research Association. He has a National Diploma in Beekeeping and is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and of the Royal Society of Biology. He is a member of the Bee Health Advisory Forum for the DEFRA 'Healthy Bees Plan' and is the UK member of the Executive Committee of the international honey bee research network, COLOSS.