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Informationen zum Autor Stephen Buchmann Klappentext In Honey Bees: Letters From the Hive , bee expert Stephen Buchmann takes readers on an incredible tour. Enter a beehive--one part nursery, one part honey factory, one part queen bee sanctum--then fly through backyard gardens, open fields, and deserts where wildflowers bloom. It's fascinating--and delicious! Hailed for their hard work and harmonious society, bees make possible life on earth as we know it. This fundamental link between bees and humans reaches beyond biology to our environment and our culture: bees have long played important roles in art, religion, literature, and medicine--and, of course, in the kitchen. For honey fanatics and all who have a sweet tooth, this book not only entertains and enlightens but also reminds us of the fragility of humanity's relationship with nature. Includes illustrations and photographs throughout. Chapter 1 Secrets of the Bee: Abuzz with Activity Oh, to Be a Bee! Honey bees live in a world vastly different from ours. On a fresh spring morning a bee looks down on fields of colorful wildflowers through many-faceted compound eyes. A bee has five compound eyes, each with thousands of slender hairs growing from its surface. Through these hairy eyes, one would see vibrant colors and rapid movements inaccessible to the sensory powers of human beings. While life on the wing could be magical, it would not be without risk. A bee could unwittingly fly into the snare of an orb-weaver spider's web or, ironically, find itself trapped in the folds of an entomologist's aerial net, condemned to the bitter-almond vapors of the killing jar. Honey bees savor tastes ranging from sweet to sour and back again, not only through cells in their mouth but also through sensitive hairs on their antennae. Bees would smell not through a big, protuberant nose but through thousands of minute sensory pits scattered across the surface of my antennae. This is called olfaction and is extremely important for bees. Without it, bees wouldn't be able to locate flowers as easily, recognize nest mates, smell an intruder in the colony, detect alarm pheromones given off by colleagues who have spotted danger. Floral scents cling to bees' hairy wax-covered bodies as insistently as the scent of a woman's perfume clings to a man's jacket after dancing close. When bees return to the hive after a successful foraging trip, the clinging fragrances inform their sisters of the kinds of blossoms they've visited during the day, a sort of travel log recording forays into floral landscapes, or bee pastures. More importantly, these scents help direct new recruits to the best sources of nectar and pollen. The scents of the outside world don't mask the unique scent of the home nest, which is always there to serve as an olfactory identity badge. Guard bees sniff the body odor of workers returning from the field; if they smell something unfamiliar, the stranger is kept out or even attacked and killed if it persists in trying to enter. Home Sweet Home: Life in the Hive If we could shrink ourselves down to bee size and enter the inner world of the nest, we would find it an alien place, dark, crowded, and oppressively hot and humid. But bees are not humans, and presumably they feel comfortable in the hive, which is home to a queen, tens of thousands of her daughters (sterile worker bees), and a few hundred or so of her sons, the drones. Double-sided hexagonal combs hang like graceful parallel curtains from the ceiling of the hive. Like large corporations that house thousands of employees in diminutive side-by-side cubicles, the beeswax nest is a highly compartmented and efficient workplace. The waxen cubicles serve a multitude of functions, from honey and pollen storage pantries and larval nurseries to dance floors for the waggle ...
