Product Description

They work hard, are devoted to family, love sex, and know the importance of a good piece of real estate. Honey bees, and the daily workings of their close-knit colonies, are one of nature's great miracles. And they produce one of nature's greatest edible bounties: honey. More than just a palate pleaser, honey was once an offering to the gods, a preservative, and a medicine whose sought-after curative powers were detailed in ancient texts . . . and are being rediscovered by modern medical science.

In Letters from the Hive, Prof. Stephen Buchmann takes us into the hive--nursery, honey factory, queen's inner sanctum--and out to the world of backyard gardens, open fields, and deserts in full bloom, where the age-old sexual dance between flowers and bees makes life on earth as we know it possible. Hailed for their hard work, harmonious society, and, mistakenly, for their celibacy, bees have a link to our species that goes beyond biology. In Letters from the Hive, Buchmann explores the fascinating role of bees in human culture and mythology, following the "honey hunters" of native cultures in Malaysia, the Himalayas, and the Australian Outback as they risk life and limb to locate a treasure as valuable as any gold.

To contemplate a world without bees is to imagine a desolate place, culturally and biologically, and Buchmann shows how with each acre of land sacrificed to plow, parking lot, or shopping mall, we inch closer to what could become a chilling reality. He also offers honey-based recipes, cooking tips, and home remedies--further evidence of the gifts these creatures have bestowed on us.

Told with wit, wisdom, and affection, and rich with anecdote and science, Letters from the Hive is nature writing at its best. This is natural history to be treasured, a sweet tribute that buzzes with life.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #279701 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-30
• Released on: 2006-05-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780553382662
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
An amateur beekeeper, entomologist and conservationist, Buchmann (The Forgotten Pollinators) surveys humankind's relationship with the oft underappreciated bee from prehistoric times to the present, emphasizing the necessity of protecting their habitats from environmental degradation. He discusses bees and honey in myth and legend; observes honey hunters in Malaysia, Nepal and Australia who use ancient methods to collect wild honey; and provides histories of beekeeping and the honey trade and an account of the activities of beekeepers. The meat of the book includes chapters on honey making, the mechanics of pollination, and bee behavior. Buchmann includes a catalogue of honey varieties, recipes, a chapter on mead, a survey of honey's medicinal uses and several appendixes, including a glossary, an inventory of bee species and a list of honey and beekeeping resources and supplies. This is a lot of material for a volume this size, and Buchmann can't cover it all in depth, but he does present a highly entertaining and informative introduction to the world of the bee, as well as an enlightening look at "the enduring bond between bees and mankind." Illus. not seen by PW. Agent, Sanford J. Greenberger. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
There has been a recent spate of books on bees and honey, perhaps reflecting a growing interest in the origins of common foodstuffs. This new addition to the genre comes with a twist, as Buchmann is not only an amateur beekeeper but one of the foremost authorities on pollination and pollinators. Bees, as the world's foremost pollinators, are Buchmann's lifework and his obsession, and that blend of science and passion makes for a lively read as he looks at the intertwined lives of bees and humans. Humans around the world learned to keep bees in various forms of hives, and Buchmann examines the evolution of beekeeping and the yearly chores of the modern apiarist. Cooking with honey, sampling types of honey from around the world, and the medicinal value of honey and other bee products round out the text. Appendixes include a glossary and a list of resources, which, with a nice bibliography, complete what may be the single best book on bees for most libraries. Nancy Bent
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"A highly entertaining and informative introduction to the world of the bee."
--Publishers Weekly

"Stephen Buchmann's Letters from the Hive is a fascinating and lovingly informative account of one of humanity's greatest accomplishments, our symbiosis with the honey bees."
--Edward O. Wilson, Pulizer Prizewinning author of On Human Nature, and Professor Emeritus at Harvard University:

"Letters from the Hive is the engrossing story of our long and richly layered relationship with bees. It reminds us of the fragile interconnections between all the creatures on this earth."
--Alice Waters, Owner, Chez Panisse Restaurant

"Letters from the Hive is really an extended love-letter--a charming, enthralling, and deeply authoritative window into the sweet, age-old affair between humans and the honey-makers. From the seasons of the hive to the history, properties, and diversity of honey, Buchmann brings us into the confidence of the bees as only he could possibly do."
--Robert Michael Pyle, author of Chasing Monarchs: Migrating With the Butterflies of Passage.

"Stephen Buchmann has done more to advance the conservation of all bees -- and the flowers that depend upon them -- than any other human in history. This intimate history is one very creative soul's lifework. Savor it."
--Gary Nabhan, author of Cross-Pollinations: The Marriage of Science and Poetry

"From the emperor Napoleon to a traditional honey hunter in Malaysia, from suburban Tucson to the dark recesses of a beehive, Letters from the Hive explores the world-wide, ages-long intimacy between Apis mellifera and Homo sapiens. The religion of the bee, the art and the biology of beekeeping, one man's love and his race's long fascination with the honeybee, it's all here--up to and including the treatment of cataracts, how to avoid getting s...

Customer Reviews

Absolutely Delightful Reading
When the book fell open to the chapter on Mead, I was hooked. In talking about Elizabeth I's favorite drink: spices, syrup, grape wine and honey, "a sickly-sweet concoction that would not appeal to the un-Tudored palates of modern Chablis drinkers." "un-Tudored," anyone who can write like that deserves to be read.

The next chapter talks about what happens to any bacterium that happens to fall into honey. The highly concentrated sugars in the honey pull the water out of the bacterium. The bacterium then shrink up and die. The ancients, applied honey to wounds, they didn't get infected and they healed faster. Honey impregnated bandages are available in Europe, Australia and New Zeeland (but not in the U.S. - probably no way to get honey through the approval cycle) but worth a try next time you get a cut.

Finally, the book concludes with an Afterword, which is entitled 'A Letter to the Hive.' It's a copy of what might be a letter to the bees, sent 'care of the hive.' It says, thanks and we love you.

Delightful reading along with a great mass of information.

Charming little book
Faint praise you say? Ok, maybe my ruffly apron is tied too tight today. The history and the cultural sections were excellent but the numerous recipes were unwelcome, mere space fillers. In fact most of the contents were fillers, neatly boxed items you could cull from a rural calendar or a few copies of Country Living. Great book for short attention spans and folks who have no trouble falling asleep. You won't fall asleep in the middle of anything in this book, nothing's that long. Which reminds me, the hardcover version is not 288 pages as stated on amazon. It's 276 pages, and that includes 54 pages of: afterword, acknowledgements, five appendices, sources, permissions, index and "about the authors."

a pretty good history
I think this is a mostly well written book, but I am a bit disappointed with the recent history section. I would like to have read more from this book about history in the 1900's more so than ancient history and a few hundred years ago. It could be that not that much happened, but I would have like a bit more coverage of what did happen. Other than that it's a pretty good reference.