Jürgen Tautz

Bees are a symbol of nature conservation. People all over the world are studying their fate and the threats posed to them by human activity and biodiversity loss. The honey bee plays an especially crucial role as one the key pollinators in the ecosystem, yet it is now considered an endangered species. Honey bee colonies are commonly kept by amateur beekeepers. But honey bees also live wild in European woodlands, where they are almost unnoticed and have no interaction with humans at all. This lavish, picture-led book is a unique collaboration between Germany’s leading bee expert, Prof Dr Jürgen Tautz, and one of the world’s top nature photographers Ingo Arndt, who provide a fascinating insight into this mysterious hidden world.

Honey Bees

Ingo Arndt

A lavishly illustrated exploration of the mysterious, hidden world of forest-dwelling wild honey bees—with new insights that promise to revolutionize conservation and beekeeping The honey bee, a key pollinator, is now an endangered species, threatened by human activity and loss of biodiversity. Because of this, understanding forest-dwelling wild honey bees—which are more resistant to diseases and parasites than honey bees kept by beekeepers—is more important than ever before. In this lavishly illustrated book, Ingo Arndt, one of the world’s best wildlife photographers, and Jürgen Tautz, one of the world’s leading bee experts, set out on the trail of wild honey bees, bringing back sensational photographs, some of which document behaviors never captured before, and new scientific insights that promise to revolutionize conservation and beekeeping. A remarkable number of wild honey bee colonies still exist, living in hollow trees inside the forest, largely unnoticed by humans. This book explores the fascinating secret world of wild honey bees, including the adaptations and behaviors they have acquired to survive and the new challenges they face today. Featuring incredible macro and wide-angle photographs, some taken from inside hives, Wild Honey Bees is a unique collaboration that documents a major research project and offers critical new insights about these essential creatures. A stunning photographic record that documents for the first time the original way of life of the endangered, forest-dwelling honey bee A unique collaboration between one of the world’s best wildlife photographers and one of its leading bee experts Features incredible macro and wide-angle photographs, some from inside the hive, depicting bees as never seen before Offers fascinating new insights into the mysterious, hidden world of the wild honey bee

An Intimate Portrait

Wild Honey Bees

Diedrich Steen

Bee hives might look like seething anarchy at first glance, but bees know exactly what they are doing. The universe of the beehive is an intricately organised, delicately balanced ecosystem. From the mighty queen to the lowliest worker bees, each bee plays its part in the whole. The Honey Factory plunges the reader into the invisible life of a bee colony and reveals the secrets of this fascinating world. How do worker bees come to a collective decision? What does the honeybees’ waggling dance communicate? What provokes the sexual excesses of the young queen bee? And why is the precious relationship between humans and bees a matter of species survival? Combining the most fascinating scientific discoveries and greatest secrets in bee research, The Honey Factory answers these questions and more.

Inside the Ingenious World of Bees

The Honey Factory

Peter M. Kappeler

Carel P. van Schaik

Juergen Heinze

Nils Anthes

Ralph Bergmüller

Wolf Blanckenhorn

H. Jane Brockmann

Claudia Fichtel

Lutz Fromhage

Joachim Frommen

Wolfgang Goymann

Katharina Hirschenhauser

Heribert Hofer

Sylvia Kaiser

Bart Kempenaers

Gerald Kerth

Judith Ingrid Korb

Kurt M. Kotrschal

Cornelila Kraus

Martha Manser

Nico Michiels

Robin F. A. Moritz

Mario Pahl

Dustin Penn

Norbert Sachser

Martin Schaefer

Jutta M. Schneider

Isabella Schreiber

Michael Taborsky

Fritz Trillmich

Shaowu Zhang

This up-to-date review examines key areas of animal behaviour, including communication, cognition, conflict, cooperation, sexual selection and behavioural variation. Various tests are covered, including recent empirical examples.

Animal Behaviour: Evolution and Mechanisms

Architektur von Menschen ist uns allen wohlbekannt, die Baukunst der Tiere jedoch bleibt meist unbeachtet. Über einen Zeitraum von zwei Jahren reiste Ingo Arndt rund um den Globus, dabei fotografierte er die bis zu zwei Meter hohen Hügel der winzigen Waldameisen in heimischen Wäldern ebenso wie die bunt geschmückten Balz-Arenen der Laubenvögel in West-Papua. Neben den Behausungen zeigen Arndts Fotografien die unterschiedlichen Erbauer. Ergänzt werden die Motive aus der freien Wildbahn durch ausgewählte Studioaufnahmen. Hier zeigt Ingo Arndt in der Reduktion das Wesentliche, eröffnet mit Detailansichten eine Welt, die sonst im Verborgenen bliebe. Dazu erzählt der bekannte Verhaltensforscher Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz spannende Geschichten über Tierarchitekten, Bauprinzipien und Tricks.

Architektier

Tis book, already translated into ten languages, may at frst sight appear to be just about honeybees and their biology. It c- tains, however, a number of deeper messages related to some of the most basic and important principles of modern biology. Te bees are merely the actors that take us into the realm of phys- ology, genetics, reproduction, biophysics and learning, and that introduce us to the principles of natural selection underlying the evolution of simple to complex life forms. Te book destroys the cute notion of bees as anthropomorphic icons of busy self-sacr -i fcing individuals and presents us with the reality of the colony as an integrated and independent being—a “superorganism”—with its own, almost eerie, emergent group intelligence. We are s- prised to learn that no single bee, from queen through drone to sterile worker, has the oversight or control over the colony. - stead, through a network of integrated control systems and fee- backs, and communication between individuals, the colony - rives at consensus decisions from the bottom up through a type of “swarm intelligence”. Indeed, there are remarkable parallels between the functional organization of a swarming honeybee colony and vertebrate brains.

Biology of a Superorganism

The Buzz about Bees

Jürgen Tautz

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