Diary of a Honey Bee - Dennis Wells

This book chronicles, with extraordinary imagery, thelifecycle of honey bees, as they strive to help their colony survive throughthe changing seasons. A beehive is often understood as a super-organism. In fact,scientists are learning that a beehive is filled with individuals, which eachhave something akin to a personality. Moreover, bees are incrediblyintelligent. They have a symbolic language, plan their daily routines, and notonly can they count but they can understand the concept of zero. The worker bees respond and adapt to their environment andhave great control over the fate of their collective. They decide where toforage for food, where to establish a new colony, and whether to raise a newqueen. They even show the queen where to find her mates. This new perspective led a team of researchers to attempt aunique challenge: to portray the life of a single bee from hatching to death. Over two years, they documented tens of thousands of bees, usingstate-of-the-art macro-imaging technology. They've brought this remarkablephotography together with rigorous science to reveal the dramatic world of thehoney bee.