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Bee (Animal), by Claire Preston
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The bee is not a domestic animal, yet our relationship with this creature is one of the longest-standing between humanity and any other species. Since the earliest times the unique manufacturing and architectural abilities of the bee and its remarkable social organization have been regarded as miraculous. Because of this ancient relationship, bees always carry profound cultural meanings which can tell us much about who we are. Bees are also the subject of an enormous body of legend throughout the temperate world; no less extraordinary is the natural history of the bee, and the ways in which its biological and social organization have been adapted and encouraged by mankind in search of honey.
Claire Preston’s Bee follows the natural and cultural history of our relationship with the bee and the development of these legends, from ancient political descriptions of the bee to Renaissance debates about monarchy, and the accompanying scientific discoveries about insects, to the modern conversion of the virtuous, civil bee into the dangerous swarm of the Hollywood horror flick, and finally to the melancholy recognition that the scientific study of bee behavior gives us a warning to beware our own awful technologies of destruction.
Written in a lively, engaging style, and containing many fascinating bee facts, anecdotes, fables, and images, Bee is also a wide-ranging, highly-illustrated meditation on the natural and cultural history of this familiar and much-admired insect. It will appeal to a wide audience: those who work with bees and in honey production; those who appreciate this industrious creature and its intricate, miniature society; and those too who have an interest in the way animals such as the bee have woven themselves into the fabric of our culture.
- Sales Rank: #2012816 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-02-26
- Released on: 2013-02-26
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
"Easily the best of several recent bee books. . . . Presents her information cogently and attractively . . . Bee is excellent." (James Fleming The Spectator 2006-04-15)
"With so many fascinating facts, fables and arcana from art, science, literature and apiculture, Bee offers a compelling meditation on the fortune's of nature's workaholic." (American Bee Journal 2006-05-01)
"The kind of book I was looking for when I started beekeeping, a general overview of bees as they have appeared in history, art, and society. Preston presents the true, the absurd and everything in between about honey bees by tracing their reality, mythology, and folklore. . . . fascinating. . . . I recommend . . . sitting down to enjoy Preston's new book Bee." (Cynthia Allen Bee Culture 2006-06-01)
"Engaging. . . . An excellent example of how cultural history can entertainingly cross borders." (BBC History Magazine 2006-06-01)
"It is an outstanding book: marvellously researched and annotated, superbly illustrated and exceptionally well written. . . . Preston must have played the bee herself in her meticulous preparation for this book, and she has done this esteemed creature the great service it merits."
(Times Literary Supplement 2006-11-01)
"Even the most widely read beekeeper will find something new here. . . . Most pages of this beautifully presented book have excellent and interesting illustrations. . . . It is a great book to read if you want to gain a wider perspective of bees’ role within our human society."
(Bees for Development Journal 2006-11-01)
About the Author
Claire Preston is lecturer in English and a fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Addictive and fun
By Michael Valdivielso
Having the book on the ant I grabbed this one on the bee. Like the ant book this book deals on how humans and bees have interacted, from when humans first hunted down bees to steal their honey to when we made horror movies about them. Facts, fiction, legends and history, this book touches on everything and anything that has to do with bees in our culture, books, movies and ideals.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
The human hive
By Ashtar Command
"Bee" isn't really a book about the biology of bees or history of beekeeping, although a few chapters on this have been included. Rather, it's a book about the bee as a cultural or political symbol. The author is a lecturer in English literature. Indeed, the biology sections of the book contain sloppy mistakes. For instance, Preston doesn't understand the exact taxonomical relationship between ants, wasps and bees. She also constantly refers to the Western honeybee as the only honey-making bee, yet mentions other honey-making bees as well, sometimes on the same page!
But then, the book is really about humans...
Preston points out that the honeybee has traditionally been a positive symbol in Western culture. The bee was considered chaste, virginal, hard-working and co-operative. Christians connected it to the virgin birth of Christ or the perpetual virginity of Mary (for a long time, people had no idea how bees reproduce). The bee supposedly left the Garden of Eden already before the fall of man, and was therefore a perfect divine creation. During the 16th and 17th centuries, many royalists claimed that the hive was controlled by a king bee. Supporters of a constitutional monarchy claimed that the worker-bees could overthrow a bad king bee. And a admirer of Elizabeth I pointed out (correctly) that the "king" bee was really a queen bee! Still others saw the beehive as a republic.
Preston has detected a change of attitude towards the honeybee as a cultural symbol during the French revolution. Both the revolutionaries and Napoleon used the bee or the beehive as emblems. Because of this, the bee got a negative reputation in Britain. Suddenly, bees were seen less as the epitome of order and more as a dangerous swarm bent on destruction. The hostility to the bee was continued by the Romantics, who saw it as a metaphor for depersonalized industrial society. Likewise with Fritz Lang, whose famous movie "Metropolis" depicts enslaved workers as being similar to bees.
But the worst bee-scare came in the United States after World War II, perhaps due to the anti-Communist hysteria of the Cold War. The collectivism of the hive resembled that of Communism. Preston also mentions a few horror movies where the evil takes the form of women who turn out to be "queen bees". Strangely, Preston never reflects on whether these films could be anti-feminist. Of course, when the Africanized killer bee "invaded" the United States from Mexico, the movie industry had a field day. Many horror movies about killer bees use these insects as an obviously racist metaphor for Blacks, Mexicans or aliens in general. One particularly bad movie depicts the killer bees as eco-terrorists, and this even before eco-terrorism became an issue!
However, Preston also points out that the European honeybee was still seen as a positive cultural symbol in many contexts. In the United States, bees are still used as role models for children: "Be a Do-Bee, Don't Be a Don't-Bee". Indeed, it's difficult to believe that the negative attitude towards the European honeybee was ever the dominant trend. It's hardly a co-incidence that the negative views of the Cold War era were later projected onto the more aggressive and invasive killer bees!
Some new development not mentioned by the author are the varroa mite and CCD. My guess is that bees will eventually become symbols of human civilization itself. The next horror movie will feature gigantic mites...or terrorists inducing mass starvation through CCD. The honeybees (and ecologists) will be the good guys. Boring, right?
As already pointed out, "Bee" isn't really about bees. It's a book about the human hive. It's not a scholarly study, but rather a compilation of facts about bees as metaphor. Some chapters could need better editing. Frankly, you probably should approach this book with a grain of salt. I mean, a book that mentions both Virgil, Edmund Burke and "Candyman"? Still, if you have a beekeeper or Do-Bee in the family, it could perhaps work as a lighter birthday gift.
Three stars.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Bee-utiful
By M. Wade
Excellent writing . So important relationship between man and Bee creature and planet
Never bored. Thank you bees and Claire
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