Table Of ContentBee
Claire Preston
Animal series
Bee
Animal
Serieseditor:JonathanBurt
Alreadypublished
Crow Oyster
BoriaSax RebeccaStott
Tortoise Rat
PeterYoung JonathanBurt
Cockroach Snake
MarionCopeland DrakeStutesman
Ant Bee
CharlotteSleigh ClairePreston
Dog Bear
SusanMcHugh RobertE.Bieder
Falcon Parrot
HelenMacdonald PaulCarter
Forthcoming
Whale Crocodile
JoeRoman RichardFreeman
Hare Spider
SimonCarnell KatjaandSergiuszMichalski
Moose Duck
KevinJackson VictoriadeRijke
Fly Salmon
StevenConnor PeterCoates
Tiger Wolf
SusieGreen GarryMarvin
Fox
MartinWallen
Bee
ClairePreston
reaktion books
FortheMelissae
ElizabethFlowerday,LauraGilbert,SarahStrader,SusanBrigden,
LucindaRumsey,MichelleShepherd-Barron
andtheBeesofEngland
Publishedby
reaktionbooksltd
33GreatSuttonStreet
Londonec1v0dx
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
Firstpublished2006
Copyright©ClairePreston2006
Allrightsreserved
Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedinaretrieval
systemortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,
mechanical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise,withouttheprior
permissionofthepublishers.
PrintedandboundinChina
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
Preston,Claire
Bee.–(Animal)
1.Bees
I.Title
595.7’99
isbn-10:186189256x
Contents
1 TheReasonsforBees 7
2 BiologicalBee 19
3 KeptBee 31
4 PoliticalBee 53
5 Pious/CorruptBee 76
6 UtileBee 93
7 AestheticBee 100
8 FolkloricBee 113
9 PlayfulBee 129
10 BeeMovie 137
11 RetiredBee 162
Timeline 168
References 171
Bibliography 187
Associations&Websites193
Acknowledgements 195
PhotoAcknowledgements 197
Index 199
1 The Reasons for Bees
TheonlyreasonforbeingabeethatIknowofismaking
honey...andtheonlyreasonformakinghoneyissoIcan
eatit.1
Theproverbgoesunaapis,nullaapis–onebeeisnobee–and
sothisbookismisnamed.Theevolutionarymiracleofso-called
‘political’insects,withtheirextraordinarysocialandbiological
organization,andremarkable,uniquemanufacturingandengi-
neering abilities, is the miracle of bees together, tens of thou-
sandsofbees.Thesocialsentienceofallthesebeesseemedto
theancientworld,anduntilquiterecently,amoralsentience.
And the moral life, as Thomas Hobbes wrote, is the life inter
omnes;itisthelifeofbees.
Ourplanetteemswithbees,about20,000apianspeciesin
all,mostofthemindispensabletoplantecology.Butthecul-
turalhistoryofbeesoverwhelminglyfeaturesjustoneofthese
–Apismellifera,orthewesternhoneybee.Thehoneybee,alone
amonganimals,makessomethingbyakindofcraftoutofele-
mentsexternaltoitself.Comparethebeetothesilkwormand
the cow: the latter naturally produce substances from their
bodieswhich,harvestedbyman,areusedorconvertedforuse
into fabric and food. The meat and skins of the animals we
huntandrearforfoodareconstituentandintegraltothem:
theycannotlivewithouttheirfurortheirmuscles,norcanthey
makeanythingfromthem.Butthebee’smainproduct,honey,
isitsownfinishedandcompletemanufacture,whichitfabri-
catesfromgatheredrawmaterials.Unlikesilkandmilk,honey
7
isabehaviouralartefactoftheartisanalcivilizationofbees.In
some ways honey has more in common with the serviceable
talentsofhorsesanddogsinperformingtasksthanithaswith
cheese and sausages and cloth from the bodies of cows and
silkworms.Theantandthetermite,thetwootherfamiliesof
socialinsect,displaythesamehighorganizationandspecial-
ization, but only the honeybee’s exemplary behaviour also
generatestomankindproductsofgreatuseandvalue.Thebee
wastechnicallyamongthefirstdomesticanimals,but,asifto
retain mastery of its products, it has never been, strictly
speaking, domesticated. For all their social graces, bees are
essentiallywild.
Beesandmenhavebeenacquaintedwitheachotherduring
thewholeofhumanhistory.Thebee,afarolderspeciesthan
thebee-keeper,wasoperatinginitsastonishingpatternsofcivil
behaviour before mankind had evolved anything resembling
social organization. When eventually he turned into a social
animal,helearnedtorobwildbees,thentokillhivedonesand,
atlast,topilferpolitelyfromthem,almostasifthepurposeof
beesonearthweretoteachmanthewaysofenlightenedself-
interestandhowtobehavefairlyandreasonably.
Because of its immensely long history in association with
man,thebeehasbeenmorecarefullyobserved,morecelebrated,
morestoriedandmythologized,andlatterlymorefearedthan
most other animals. Some of the first pictographic human
records include business with bees, as do the earliest written
ones.FromthefirstGreekpoetrytothelatestHollywoodhor-
ror film, the bee stands as an emblem of man’s relation to
natureandtohimself.Themysteryandthewonderofthebee
prompted the seventeenth-century scientists who used the
earliest,primitivemicroscopestodescribeanddrawthebee
beforeallothercreatures.
8
Description:"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 slop
