The world is a beehive

The world is a beehive, and I just stepped right into it!

Most people assume that there is only one kind of bee: the honeybee (with the killer bee as an unfortunate spin-off). I certainly thought so, until I read this book. Actually, there are about 25,000 different species of bees! You heard me. Not twenty-five, but twenty-five THOUSAND. How's that for a mindjob?

Apart from "our" Western honeybee, there are mining bees, mason bees, carpenter bees, leaf-cutter bees, even sweat bees. And, of course, bumblebees! I always thought that bumblebees weren't really bees, but belonged to a different category altogether, rather like hornets or ants. That's certainly how the common man in Sweden sees the situation. Every non-biologist or school teacher talk about bees, hornets and bumblebees as if they were three different things. In reality, bumblebees are very closely related to honeybees. The British authors of "Bees of the World" even say that bumblebees are more "bee-like" than honeybees. I suppose this is why British bee books sometimes put a bumblebee on their front cover - it's considered archetypically, Platonically bee-ish by the general public. Nobody in Sweden would agree. An interesting cultural difference!

I was even more surprised to learn that many of the solitary bees (mason bees, etc) can be found right here, in Europe. I must have encountered them many times over, but never noticed, simply assuming that they were odd-looking honeybees. Finally, "Bees of the World" solved another mystery from my childhood: Who makes circular holes in the leaves of rose bushes? We knew that a nasty neighbour sometimes stole the flowers, but this... It's the bees, stupid!

"Bees of the World" is a real nerd book, written by two enthusiasts for other enthusiasts. I must admit I'm now one of them. I've read almost the entire book from cover to cover in just five days. The authors mentions the honeybee only in passing, and concentrate on the lesser known bee families, giving rather detailed information on pretty much everything from their nests and mating habits, to their intricate social behaviour and even parasites. Even the "solitary" bees turn out to be quite social, and some of the parasites are other bees! There are also sections on the interaction between bees and flowers (the chapter on orchids being particularly intriguing), drones (some of them roost like birds), cuckoo and robber bees, bees that nest in empty seashells, and "stingless" bees that can fry your skin instead, giving you terrible burns! The only thing conspicuously missing are the killer bees - just one picture of those.

Recommended, if you can tear yourself from that honeyjar of yours.

PS. Is the insect on the front-cover really a bee? It looks like a DRONE FLY! :-D