Product Description

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln and Muhammad Ali both consumed bee pollen to boost energy, or that beekeepers in nineteenth-century Europe viewed their bees as part of the family? Or that after man, the honeybee, Apis mellifera, is the most studied creature on the planet? And that throughout history, honey has been highly valued by the ancient Egyptians (the first known beekeepers), the Greeks, and European monarchs, as well as Winnie the Pooh?

In Sweetness and Light, Hattie Ellis leads us into the hive, revealing the fascinating story of bees and honey from the Stone Age to the present, from Nepalese honey hunters to urban hives on the rooftops of New York City. Uncovering the secrets of the honeybee one by one, Ellis shows how this small insect, with a collective significance so much greater than its individual size, can carry us through past and present to tell us more about ourselves than any other living creature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #270926 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-25
• Released on: 2006-04-25
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
For anyone who's wondered about how humans first started eating honey—after all, bees guard it jealously—Ellis's charming history will be a treat. Apis mellifera is "the most studied creature on the planet after man," she writes, although even so, it turns out that the honeybee's biological ancestry isn't quite clear. There is some evidence that their relatives existed 200 million years ago or more—earlier than the earliest known flower, in other words, which would mean that they were eating something other than nectar. British food writer Ellis (Tea) leaves the tedious details of bee taxonomy to the experts, but satisfies readers with the fact that bees probably evolved from an ancestor of the carnivorous wasp. She then reveals the state of modern beekeeping by visiting apiarists and letting them talk about their bees, which they do, quite happily, relating tales of the delightful symbiosis of human and bee. Ultimately, it's all about the honey, and those who prefer to think of the sweet stuff as something that comes from jars might cringe at Elllis's description of how bees make it: the phrase "sucked and pumped, sucked and pumped, sucked and pumped" is queasily accurate. Entrancing anecdotes, accurate details and meticulous research add up to a sweetly satisfying read. 20 b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
As Ellis points out, wherever bees are, whether jungle, tundra, or forest, they find nectar to turn into honey, honey that tastes of mint, or grapes, or oranges, depending on the flowers the bees have visited. Ellis, a columnist and food writer, has created a marvelous combination of natural history and social science as she explores the ways of bees, honey, and humans. The history of bees and flowers are inexorably intertwined--flowers need bees for pollination; bees need flowers for nectar. And as shown in Paleolithic art, humans have stolen honey from bees for millennia, and as early as the ancient Egyptians began to create homes for bees to encourage them to live nearby. Ellis follows the course of beekeeping, even visiting modern beekeepers on Manhattan rooftops. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Deftly blending natural history, human history, literature, biography, and biology, Ellis provides a graceful survey as entertaining as it is enlightening.” —Los Angeles Times

Customer Reviews

Delightful reading!
This beautifully written book allows the pleasurable ingestion of numerous curious and intriging facts by coating them with honey. I have never enjoyed a non-fiction book as much!

Absolutely Delightful!
I find honeybees fascinating, and when I went to find a book, this was the first thing in my search. It was a great find. The book has a lot of information, but also it isn't dull to read like some books. The information is spliced in with her personal experiences and descriptions of various types of honey. Plus, the woman writes beautifully. Her writing style is romantic and concise, presumably because she is a food writer. But if you are at all interested in bees or honey, I highly recommend it. If you are someone who already knows a lot about the science behind bees, most of the basic information you may already know, but perhaps not the history of the hive, old traditions with bees, or the way honey is classified the world over. And there is an amazing section on how the Africanized bees came to this country and how things went awry. It was an absolutely delightful book to read, and I was sad when I came to the last pages, Ellis pulled me into the world of bees and honey, and I was truly attached to some of the people she had met in her journey to do research for the book. It truly was a joy in every way that a book should be.

A great overview of the history of apiculture
I was enchanted by this book. Artfully written, it gives you a real sense of the history of the honey bee and of the people who cultivated it. Hattie Ellis incorporates a great diversity of viewpoints and imparts her love of the myriad flavors of honey, honey products and the foods they grew up with.