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Darwin Year 2009" page.
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Tautz' Et Al's Book a Must for Those Interested in Bees,
<nobr>March 6, 2010</nobr>
by Stephen Bamford
Last year at the Florida State Beekeepers Association meeting in Monticello, Florida, attended by folks from over the United States, I had the privilege of meeting Dave Westervelt, a Florida State Apiary Inspector who shared with me a most remarkable book. I was so impressed by the 5 minute conversation I had with him about it I went to W.W. Kelly's folks, the Priddys and bought the thing. I'd have bought it from Amazon if it had not been available on-site.
Just now I'm finally getting it together to read it. It's called The Buzz About Bees by Jurgen Tautz. The 'U' in Jurgen has 2 dots over it. I don't know what that's called in English and my German is nonexistent.
The book has some of the most remarkable photographs I have ever seen and I'm sure you'll agree if you see them for yourselves they will blow you away. Helga Heilmann made photographs that are so incredible you'll feel as though you're inside the box without a veil! Remarkable! A truly accomplished photographer the envy of all us 'wannabes.' :-D
In the book, a web site in Germany is given [...] and on it if you hunt around, you can find an English translation version in addition to the German. These folks have live web cams on their site. Have a look. I'm sure you'll agree it's an awesome site and truly wonderful they are sharing it with the world, especially considering the world faces if our bees go the way of the dinosaur.
In short Dave was not exaggerating when he spoke of this book. If you've ever read E.O. Wilson's work, Jurgen Tautz's is in the same spirit and continues in a wonderful evolutionary manner of its own.
Talk about radical ideas, Tautz puts forth some of the most compelling arguments for bees, viewed outside their phylogenetic schema and in an environmental paradigm, being on a par with mammals! If humanity can listen and pay attention to guys like him and E.O. Wilson, the world will be a far better place.
This book is a must for anyone interested in bees or insects or nature! 5 Stars! This book is well worth the purchase. You'll gain so much from reading it.
"I must congratulate you on your excellent book, "The Buzz about Bees. The writing is superb."
Mark W. Moffett, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, NMNH, The Smithsonian Institution
Associate Curator, University of California at Berkeley
Contract Photographer, National Geographic Magazine
"The buzz about Bees is a great book about all bee things. The final chapters are a compelling intro to complex adaptive systems."
Muness Alrubaie
The Buzz About Bees: Biology of a Superorganism (by Jürgen Tautz, Translated by David C. Sandeman, $40, Springer, 2008):
This book has a textbookish quality that, while off-putting to the casual reader, could be extremely satisfying to bookish apiarists.
Jürgen Tautz approaches the bee colony as a "superorganism," and examines the emergent intelligence in this group of insects that in some ways mimics the workings of the human brain.
If you want to see bees from a new angle, consider Tautz's thesis that honey bee colonies could be deemed "honorary mammals."
--Della Watson
The Buzz about Bees, written by Juergen Tautz, a world-renowned expert, is beautifully written and beautifully illustrated. It is remarkable how accessible the text is since the author has not watered down the science.
The text sheds crucial light on the division of labor in the bee super organism, offering a scholarly presentation of the communication among honey bees, that sustains their community and promotes their survival. The author has a lively and engaging style and the skill to explain complex ideas intelligibly to a general audience. The impressively illustrated book is a model of scholarship which distills the original new findings of the author and his co-workers and the earlier accounts of bee researchers.
The chapters encompass the recent spectacular discoveries that revolutionize the understanding of the bee super organism. This compelling book deserves to be read by everyone interested in the third most important domestic animal, the super organism which the beehive contains. The book will be of interest to a wide readership and it will appeal not only to specialists but also to general readers.
Professor Karl Maramorosch Cook College, Rutgers University, Department of Entomology, Blake Hall, 93 Lipman Drive, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-8524, USA

Click here to read the book review on page 2 of the pdf file.
The Buzz About Bees: Biology of a Superorganism
Jürgen Tautz; photographs by Helga R. Heilmann; David C. Sandeman, translator
"I’ve got a whole stack of books on honeybees. This one is the best. A great summary of all the very latest research on bee life history combined with way-beyond-amazing photos. Read this and you’ll never look at a honeybee the same way ever again. I promise."
Here is a review from Brazil.
A review of "The Buzz about Bees" can be found
here.
Here is a review at
popularscience.co.uk.
Here is a link to a review at Lab Times, Issue 5 / 2008.
A review at the "Central Beekeepers Alliance" of New Brunswick, Canada can be found
here.
For reviews and testimonials presented by Springer please click
here.
Here are links to the customer reviews at
amazon.com and
amazon.de.
A review in "The Guardian" - July 20th, 2008 can be found
here.
Review in "BeeCulture USA July 2008":
Review of "The buzz about bees" in the dutch "Handelsblad":

Errata (to be corrected in a second printing of the English edition!)
page 47 - 48:
In a colony of 50.000 bees and with a daily death rate of 500 individuals, this amounts at a daily replacement rate of 1% to a replacement of the entire colony, eith the exception of the queen, within about 4 months.
page 75:
(fig. 4.6, lower panel)
page 90:
Such a device, or analyzer is built into the bee's eyes and enables them to discriminate polarized from non-polarized light.
page 96:
figure legend to fig. 4.18
Communication by dancing requires that the legs of the dancer remain firmly anchored to the comb. Hence, the dancer carries out a "waggle stand" rather than a "waggle run". Her six feet (marked here with white points) maintain contact with the rims of the cells, while her waggling body leans forward over her stationary feet (shown by the arrow).
page 101:
point 4 of the list
Resolved and settled the decade-long controversy... . Searching recruits were not found flying around where the dancing bee really came from, but in an area much further away where there was nothing of interest. Information from the dance is used.
page 112:
The "buzzing" sound of the flights" is probably an unintentional result result of the way the wings are employed to produce turbulence.
page 122:
figure legend to fig. 5.5
After successful mating, part of the endophallus remains in the sting chamber of the queen, and is brought back to the nest after the nuptial flight, as a sign that fertilization has occurred.
page 146:
As larvae become older, their diet of royal jelly is mixed with ever more pollen and honey, and the final larval stage does not receive any royal jelly at all.
pages 178 + 180, Figures 7.19 and Fig. 7.20 :
exchange the figures
page 182:
paragraph 3
A pollen collector typically brings about 15 mg of pollen home, distributed between the two pollen baskets on her hind legs. A colony collects about 20 to 30 kg of pollen per year. About one to two million foraging flights are necessary to assemble these pollen stores.
page 199:
Point 2 in the list
the dimensions of the new hollow (not too large, but enough room for expansion in later years).
page 217, last point:
About 400 kJ are burned for warming the cluster of bees in the nest in winter.
(kindly pointed out by Dr. Maurice Bichard, The Farmhouse, Fyfield Wick Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5NB)
page 245:
line 14 from bottom ff
Once the first steps on the way to the superorganism were taken on the basis of kin selection, other changes occured that offered advantages that more than compensated for genetically drifting apart, and that hold the organisms together in their superorganisms despite strong wings in kinship within them.
page 249:
Intro to Chap. 10
"The bee colony superorganism is more than the simple sum of all its parts. It possesses properties that one does not find in single bees although many of the properties of the single bees are determined and influenced by those of entire colony within the framework of its sociophysiology."
page 240:
legend to Fig.9.1
Fathers share an r-value of 1.0 with their daughters.
page 273:
Nowottnick, K. (2004)
page 274:
Photograph sources
Rosemarie Müller-Tautz: Figs. 4.3, 4.7 below Jürgen Tautz, BEEgroup: Fig. 5.6 top
The bestseller-book "Phänomen Honigbiene" is now available in Chinese language.
The translation into Chinese was done by
Dr. Songkun Su, a member of the
Institute ofsericulture and apiculture , a subdivision of the
College of animal sciences at the
Zhejiang University in China.
To get more information please click
here.
Libro di Jurgen Tautz, Springer Verlag Italia. Lautore approfondisce il concetto di superorgansimo, secondo cui lalveare un sistema complesso capace di autogestirsi e di adattarsi ai mutamenti dellambiente esterno. Ci spiega tutto Claudio Porrini, ricercatore presso la facolt di agraria all'Universit di Bologna.
Evento Speziale at the Festival della Scienza in Genuva, 23 Ottobre 2008-10-12
Il ronzio delle api di Juergen Tautz, foto di Helga Heilmann, Springer, 301 pagine illustrate a colori, 29 euro. L’autore dirige il BEEgroup dell’università di Wuerzburg, la fotografa ci lavora e raccontano tutto della biologia e dei comportamenti “dell’animale domestico più piccolo del mondo”.
Le nostre api - Associazioni apicoltori felsinei (PDF file)
Due to the great support of the
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation the
Arab Scientific Publishers in Lebanon were able to publish the edition of "Phänomen Honigbiene" in Arabic.
The Arab expert who greatly supported the making of the Arabic version of this book is Dr. Nizar Haddad, Head of the Beekeeping & Apicultural Research at the
Bee Research Unit of Jordan.
Now Dr. Nizar Haddad received the
Basic and Natural Sciences Award 2008 from the
Philadelphia University in Jordan for his translation of the bee book.
Congratulations, Dr. Haddad !
The book can be ordered at
www.neelwafurat.com
The TV report can be downloaded
here (wmv-file).
The arabic edition of the bee book is featured on the main Saudi Arabian beekeeping
website.
Here are some more links about the arabic bee book:
http://alarabalyawm.net/pages.php?news_id=154002
Information about the Slovenian bee book can be found
here.
Information about the Portuguese bee book can be found
here.
Please click
here to learn more about it.
Information about the Spanish bee book can be found
here.