The Buzz about Bees: Biology of a Superorganism

by Jürgen Tautz, Helga R. Heilmann (Photographer), David C. Sandeman (Translator)

This book, already translated into ten languages, may at frst sight appear to be just about honeybees and their biology. It contains, however, a number of deeper messages related to some of the most basic and important principles of modern biology. The bees are merely the actors that take us into the realm of physiology, genetics, reproduction, biophysics and learning, and that introduce us to the principles of natural selection underlying the evolution of simple to complex life forms. The book destroys the cute notion of bees as anthropomorphic icons of busy self-sacrificing individuals and presents us with the reality of the colony as an integrated and independent being—a superorganism with its own, almost eerie, emergent group intelligence. We are surprised to learn that no single bee, from queen through drone to sterile worker, has the oversight or control over the colony. Instead, through a network of integrated control systems and feedbacks, and communication between individuals, the colony arrives at consensus decisions from the bottom up through a type of swarm intelligence. Indeed, there are remarkable parallels between the functional organization of a swarming honeybee colony and vertebrate brains.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Nature

298 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2007

Reviews

[Bill Robson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read about a dozen books about bees. I'm a beekeeper. This is the most interesting book about bees I've read. It's not about how to keep bees, but delves were other books don't venture. Easy to read and gives a new perspective or parading shift on this topic! A must read for a beekeeper and easy to understand for the general public.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dive into how a beehive operates, with a focus on how a beehive can be seen as a superorganism. The hive is full of bees with very similar DNA given the connected relationships to the queens. In a way, the queen can be considered the egg of a hive-animal, drones as sperm, the comb as an insulating body and protective home, and the workers as organs. The bees work in a decentralized, adaptive, cooperative way with a variety of different jobs being done by groups of workers. Every section was pretty mind-blowing, especially the sections on how bees communicate dance-vectors to show other bees where flowers are located and how bees have co-evolved with flowers.

[Dillon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Fascinating content. This book nicely straddled the line between accessibility and technical information. It doesn't insult the reader's intelligence with meandering analogies and dumbed-down explanations as many science books meant for lay readers do. It also placed the technical information it did present within grasp of any reader willing to take a bit time to digest and integrate its parts.

And while I know the book was written in German with a pretty rigid and not-precisely literary telos, the writing was a bit dull throughout. It is for this reason only that I didn't give 5 stars.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

We planted some pollinator-friendly plants in our yard this Spring and the bees came. Hundreds of bees methodically working through the nepeta dropmore blooms with a thoroughness that lasted through the entirety of the summer. I became fascinated.

I picked up this book wanting to learn the basics of honey bees and was well-rewarded. Indeed, the lives of honey bees and hives are even more fascinating than I could have imagined and there is still so much that researchers have yet to learn about them.

This book was originally written in German and was rather clunkily translated to English - that is the only reason I shaved a star.

[Mark Moon · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars, but I rounded up because I love bees. This book is very accessible, but also a little light on detail. Nonetheless, I learned a lot. I was fascinated, enchanted, and sometimes grossed out a little. The best thing about this book is that it is chock full of excellent photographs of bees and their hives.

[Marija · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started reading this for work ages ago and since finishing it, I think it's a great read for any beekeeper or non-beekeeper alike. The photos are amazing (!!!) and the topics discussed cover so much of the bee realm! This is a cross between a great textbook and a fable or novel. I feel much more knowledgeable about the world of bees and what goes on inside a hive, but more importantly, I feel eager to explore even more about them. This book is a great inspiration for digging into the bee hive and better understanding our little powerful pals. Happy to have read it :)

[Jobe (Bookslayer) · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to all known laws
of aviation,


there is no way a bee
should be able to fly.


Its wings are too small to get
its fat little body off the ground.


The bee, of course, flies anyway


because bees don't care
what humans think is impossible.


Yellow, black. Yellow, black.
Yellow, black. Yellow, black.


Ooh, black and yellow!
Let's shake it up a little.


Barry! Breakfast is ready!


Ooming!


Hang on a second.


Hello?


- Barry?
- Adam?


- Oan you believe this is happening?
- I can't. I'll pick you up.


Looking sharp.


Use the stairs. Your father
paid good money for those.


Sorry. I'm excited.


Here's the graduate.
We're very proud of you, son.


A perfect report card, all B's.


Very proud.


Ma! I got a thing going here.


- You got lint on your fuzz.
- Ow! That's me!


- Wave to us! We'll be in row 118,000.
- Bye!


Barry, I told you,
stop flying in the house!


- Hey, Adam.
- Hey, Barry.


- Is that fuzz gel?
- A little. Special day, graduation.


Never thought I'd make it.


Three days grade school,
three days high school.


Those were awkward.


Three days college. I'm glad I took
a day and hitchhiked around the hive.


You did come back different.


- Hi, Barry.
- Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good.


- Hear about Frankie?
- Yeah.


- You going to the funeral?
- No, I'm not going.


Everybody knows,
sting someone, you die.


Don't waste it on a squirrel.
Such a hothead.


I guess he could have
just gotten out of the way.


I love this incorporating
an amusement park into our day.


That's why we don't need vacations.


Boy, quite a bit of pomp...
under the circumstances.


- Well, Adam, today we are men.
- We are!


- Bee-men.
- Amen!


Hallelujah!


Students, faculty, distinguished bees,


please welcome Dean Buzzwell.


Welcome, New Hive Oity
graduating class of...


...9:15.


That concludes our ceremonies.


And begins your career
at Honex Industries!


Will we pick ourjob today?


I heard it's just orientation.


Heads up! Here we go.


Keep your hands and antennas
inside the tram at all times.


- Wonder what it'll be like?
- A little scary.


Welcome to Honex,
a division of Honesco


and a part of the Hexagon Group.


This is it!


Wow.

[Yuxi Liu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have enjoyed parts of chapter 7. Things I learned: there's chemical memory in the wax cells; cell vibration is a communicational channel, with mechanical filtering (Klarreich, 2001); mouse mummy by propolis. But other than that, I mostly have criticisms for the book.

Even as a work of pop-science, this is at a low level, probably around middle school level. For one, it has only photos, and not a single mathematical diagram, even when such diagrams would be very useful. For instance, at page 226, a time-temperature graph would really help.

The same author later wrote another pop-science book The Honey Factory: Inside the ingenious world of bees (2018), which does include some mathematical diagrams where they clarify the points. Often, numbers are given without context, making them hard to interpret.

Page 217 is a case in point. What does it mean for a hive to use 2 GJ during winter? How does it compare with other animals of similar size and body temperature? Well, 2 hives have about the same weight and surface area as 1 human, so we can calculate.
2 * 2 GJ = 960,000 kcal = 480 days of a human's nutrition (assuming 2000 kcal/day).
So, to spend 3 months, with the same body temperature and mass, the hives use 5 times more energy as a human. This contextualizes the brute number "2 GJ".

Page 259 has a tantalizing paragraph without further explanation. Here, the lack of citations is really frustrating.
> Threshold values for particular actions can also be influenced by conditions in the brood nest. Unlike the genetic component, this is a slow feedback loop that is apparently developmentally manipulated by the bees themselves, and which plays the decisive role.

In chapter 9, the discussion of eusociality is more numerically sound. However, it has critically left out the fact that eusociality has evolved in species that don't haplodiploidy, such as naked mole rats.

Page 237, the diploid drone recognition is actually very interesting, and a great evolutionary lesson is missed: even "painful" traits can be produced, if they only appear in evolutionary dead-ends, such as "cannibalism substance" in diploid males, or genetic diseases that only appear in people over 80 years old.
From http://honeybee.drawwing.org/book/dip...
> Workers recognize the diploid drones larvae using substances present at their bodies. It was suggested that diploid drones produce pheromone called "cannibalism substance" which is a signal to workers that they should be destroyed see also. Such self-destructive behaviour of diploid drones can evolve because they are neither able to reproduce nor help their relatives.

Page 245, the point is muddled. It means to say that there's a "point of no return" in eusociality (Wilson, Holldobler, 2005).

More problematically, the book has some intuitive-sounding ideas concerning evolution that are actually very wrong.

Take for example its incorrect elevation of mammals above other phyla of animals. So on page 4, the author draws several parallels between bees and mammals. However, some of the parallels are quite unfounded in biology.

> Mammals have a very low rate of reproduction—so do honeybees
What about rabbits? And how about some non-mammals with very low rates of reproduction (see below)?

> Mammals with their large brains possess the highest learning and cognitive abilities of all vertebrates
Not only does this remind one of the debunked idea of the great chain of being, with bacteria on the bottom and mammals on top, it is simply factually wrong -- crows and octopuses are smarter than most mammals.
> ... evolutionary characters rendered the most recently evolved form of all vertebrates—the mammals—dominant.
This is another error of the same kind. Of the main phyla of vertebrates, mammals did not evolve last -- birds evolved last. And even if they did, that doesn't mean they are the most advanced. It is a common misconception that last evolved = most advanced.

This can be fixed by replacing "mammal" with "K-selected species". However, this has its own problems -- the r/K selection theory has replaced by life-history theory. So perhaps the phrase "slow life-history strategy" would be best. As some concrete examples of slow life-history species that are very far from mammals, consider these examples from Convergent evolution (McGhee 2011):
> The tuatara has a life span of over 70 years, and reproduces only every four years after taking 13 years to reach sexual maturity (Daugherty et al. 1993), a life history more similar to that of a mammal than of a reptile. Its ancestors survived the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, while the New Zealand non-avian dinosaurs did not.The giant predatory snail Paryphanta busbyi, which has a shell 115 millimeters in diameter, can live up to 40 years and takes 15 years to reach sexual maturity (Daugherty et al. 1993).

On page 134, it's claimed
> The colony also decides when it is advantageous to change queens. As a rule, it is an old queen that is replaced. This is logical, because the sperm cell stores that were established during the nuptial flight will sooner or later be used up

However, this only brings the immediate question: why doesn't the queen mate again? Presumably, this limit on the fertility period of a queen is similar to how human females have menopauses -- both are instances of the female body quitting reproduction "without coercion", requiring explanation.

Page 132,
> Raising young queens that then kill one another, though, is not particularly productive, and most contests of this nature are avoided when the first young queen to emerge quickly leaves the nest like the old queen did before her, but with another portion of the original colony in a secondary swarm
"Not particularly productive"? The superorganism could have evolved to make many virgin queens, considering how cheap they are -- even if the number of virgin queens is increased by ten, they would still constitute only 100 out of a nest of about 100,000 bees. Certainly, something more than just "productivity" is involved in this serious limitation on virgin queens.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

bees are fucking crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! absolutely hyperfixating but like how can you not? everything from their individual biology to their emergent social structure is utterly alien to everything I know. this book did a good job of presenting that alien science in an academic yet approachable way, and I was regularly unable to put it down. there are definitely some bumps in the road, tho I can’t tell if it’s because of translation or because scientists aren’t always the greatest writers. but the content was well worth the occasional trudge, and the pictures throughout were also so cool.

literally feeling compelled to write an essay on critical social theory thru the lens of bees, but I’m not going to do that bc I’m not insane… probably

if u want to talk about bees PLEASE hmu

[James Prentice · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much to say about this book. It's full of lovely pictures that illustrate most of the points in the book.

The book is about bees and not bee keeping, but it gave me a lot of things to think about while managing our hives.

Because I know how important bees are, I wish everyone would read this book.

It's a real pleasure and well done. There are a few dry patches but I think anyone with an interest will enjoy this read.

[Madison Deppe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly comprehensive, chock full of fascinating information and biology and science, almost all of which was presented in layman’s terms - and for those parts that were not, I enjoyed the mental challenge of trying to understand this fascinating little world! I can’t believe how much I learned while reading this. So much so that I am genuinely grateful for having had this book cross my path, for I will carry and ponder on and use this information and knowledge in the years to come when working with or simply admiring bees!

[Linda Shaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book - should be required reading

[nobuyuki ishibe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both known and unknown facts are well covered covered. I wish the picture captions can be larger.

[Lex · Rating 4 out of 5]

It lost a bit in translation, but this was a good research-based read. Disorganized but informational. I loved the in-depth info about heater bees!

[Peter Sandwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent text, clear and informative. A+

[Randy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poorly titled but excellent - surprisingly, easy to read and nontechnical in many ways, but very insightful and though-provoking.

[Margob99 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book walked the tightrope of popular appeal and scientific terminology with great aplomb. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but then I am a beekeeper. I found the theory that Tautz is proposing fascinating; what a thought - to reclassify bees from insect to mammal. His arguments are persuasive although I was not altogether brought round - the idea is just too radical for me. But the research was incredible, the results useful and the photography out of this world! Highly recommended for other beekeepers.

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazing photography. The science however, while fascinating, is so dense and jumps unnervingly from one discipline to the next - often in a single paragraph. The blurb on the author touts his ability to make deep science accessible to laypeople. This book at least sadly misses that mark. The translation also is at times confusing, and other times clearly making up new words and constructs - and not in a good way. I'd still recommend it, just know what you're getting into: a tough textbook treatment, not a popularization of an exciting biology.

[Rob Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent insights

This book took some of the concepts briefly mentioned in other books, like keeping the brood between 93°F and 96°F, to a new level. Talking about the probability that the higher the temperature, the more agile and smarter the bee will be. Also, things like seeing the bees head deep in the empty cells around good brood pattern. Who knew the bees were heating.

Definitely with the read.

[M_agunngh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, rasanya seru banget...walo terlambat membaca buku "bukan" novel yg bagus seperti ini.
Bagaimana lebah beraksi terhadap lingkungan,
dan tentunya ngebentuk heksagonal tetep bikin mrinding.
#An-Nahl

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Expertly written with current research and amazing photos. Not a mention of the trouble bees seem to be in; maybe they are confident the superorganism that is the honeybee hive can get through all the turmoil.

[Luboš · Rating 5 out of 5]

Úžasná kniha, fenomenální fotografie. Snažím se omezit počet knih v mé knihovně, ale tenhle kousek mi tam nesmí chybět. Jde o doporučenou vysokoškolskou učebnici ČZU Praha, ale je srozumitelná i laikům.

[Cristiano · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good book if you know nothing, or next to nothing, about bees.
Consider this book the starting point in your quest to fully appreciate bees.
If you already know something about bees and want to deepen your understanding of this amazing insect, try something else.

[Gord · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reference volume on the biology of the honeybee. The pictures alone are worth the price.

[Zinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was is about honey bees and not about beekeeping. I did not now about "heater bees" and found that information fascinating. The chapter on beeswax was also interesting.

[Julie-anna Child · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that made the difference for me as a new beekeeper, great images and concepts explained vividly.

[Erkki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book about bees. Important for both beekeepers and the rest.