The Dancing Bees: An Account of the Life and Senses of the Honey Bee

by Karl von Frisch

German

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Nature, Biology, Animals, Popular Science

182 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Karl Ritter von Frisch (20 November 1886 – 12 June 1982) was an Austrian ethologist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz.

His work centered on investigations of the sensory perceptions of the honey bee and he was one of the first to translate the meaning of the waggle dance. His theory was disputed by other scientists and greeted with skepticism at the time. Only recently was it definitively proved to be an accurate theoretical analysis.

Reviews

[Wouter Janssen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mateloos fascinerend! Ongelofelijk hoeveel arbeid er zit in onderzoek naar bijengedrag. Echt een gezellig kneuterig boekje. Would recommend (imkerambities niet vereist).

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this book slowly also, and it is very worthwhile and excellent.

Amazing to see the painstaking and daily work needed to build up a theory. Von Frisch is an outstanding scientist, and I think would have been a fascinating man to know!

[Diana Lupu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read.

[Kurtbg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seminal book and work establishing understanding of life forms derived by taken the position of the animal and it’s world, and not with human bias... but, however, with human intelligence, creativity, and a motivation to uncover a closer truth.

Experiments were ingeniously conducted based on the above approach to provide a scholarly and satisfying telling of what how bees do what they do.

See also Jakob von Uexküll’s “A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning”

I’d add this to a reading list for young explorers to expand their perspectives and views... including Richard Feynman’s “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.”

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Nature has unlimited time in which to travel along tortuous paths to an unknown destination. The mind of mind is too feeble to discern whence or wither the path runs and has to be content if it can discern only portions of the track, however small." A wonderful book by Karl von Frisch, Nobel Prize winner. If you are looking for a text that provides an introduction to honey bee biology and behavior, this book is fantastic. More importantly, in clear languange von Frisch decribes many of his foundational experiments exploring how honey bees learn, use dance language, and interact with their environment.

[Sabiha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book. I picked it up while working on a research paper I was writing for an entomology class. (I was writing about Branford Bee from Building Stories.) This is funny, informative, and oddly poetic. I'll be checking out Frisch's other works soon, specifically Animal Architecture.

[Nathan Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bees rock.

[Santhosh Totiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book to know about wonderful bee world. The book narrates how bees communicate one another and how they perceive world. An elusive writing one of the father of behavioral studies.