Diary of a Honey Bee

About this book

This book chronicles, with extraordinary imagery, the lifecycle of honey bees, as they strive to help their colony survive through the changing seasons.

A beehive is often understood as a super-organism. In fact, scientists are learning that a beehive is filled with individuals, which each have something akin to a personality. Moreover, bees are incredibly intelligent. They have a symbolic language, plan their daily routines, and not only can they count but they can understand the concept of zero.

The worker bees respond and adapt to their environment and have great control over the fate of their collective. They decide where to forage for food, where to establish a new colony, and whether to raise a new queen. They even show the queen where to find her mates.

This new perspective led a team of researchers to attempt a unique challenge: to portray the life of a single from hatching to death. Over two years, they documented tens of thousands of bees, using state-of-the-art macro-imaging technology. They've brought this remarkable photography together with rigorous science to reveal the dramatic world of the honey bee.

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Biography

Dennis Wells holds a master’s degree in sociology and has dedicated his career to exploring environmental issues. He has lived and studied in both Germany and Canada, completing parts of his education in Düsseldorf and Vancouver. After graduating, he taught at the University of Düsseldorf, worked in radio and eventually found his calling in documentary filmmaking. His films have won multiple international awards – including an Emmy for outstanding research, an AAAS Science Journalism Award and several honours at Germany’s renowned nature film festival, Greenscreen. This non-fiction book is his first. He lives and works in Cologne, together with his family, and as close to the Rhine as possible.

Prof. Jürgen Tautz, a retired professor at the University of Würzburg,  is a zoologist, sociobiologist and leading expert on honey bee behaviour. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestseller The Buzz about Bees (translated into 20 languages) and  Communication Between Honeybees. As a classical zoologist, he has studied the behaviour and physiology of numerous animal species and published in respected scientific journals for decades. His writing and popular lectures have twice been honoured by the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO), which included him among the best scientists in Europe in communicating science to the public. H has also received the prestigious Communicator Award of the German Research Foundation.