Why do bees in Massachusetts cities fare better than their rural cousins? Which bees, and bee predators, are winning via changes in climate? Which complete with its own songs and rituals?
Noah Wilson-Rich’s “The Bee: A Natural History” (Ivy Press, 2014) serves answers and so much more. Not a beekeeping book per se, though it has a beekeeping section, this is more a compendium of knowledge on the 20,000 or so bee species in the world and the state of humans’ relationship with them throughout history.
It’s fertile soil for any bee inquiry you want to make. There are sections on bees and spirituality (Bees in the Koran? Bees in the Torah? Check. Patron saints of beekeeping? Double check); bee anatomy (genomics? Check) and research initiatives to help bees. The quantity and quality of the photos qualifies the book as bee porn, and that’s before readers get to the 45-page “Directory of bees,” with its glamour shots of a wide variety of species.
That directory isn’t necessarily going to help Coloradans But it will help us appreciate them, cease to fear them and .
