Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee
10 best books like Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee (Hattie Ellis): Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish, Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey--The Sweet Liquid Gold that Seduced the World, Plan Bee: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Hardest-Working Creatures on the Planet, The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us, Langstroth's Hive and the Honey-Bee: The Classic Beekeeper's Manual, Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks, Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn, Darwin Slept Here: Discovery, Adventure, and Swimming Iguanas in Charles Darwin's South America, Honeybee Democracy, The Queen Must Die and Other Affairs of Bees and Men
| Author | James Prosek |
| ISBN | 0060566116 |
Tour through the life history and cultural associations of the freshwater eel, exploring its biology in streams and epic migrations in the ocean, its myth and lore, its mystery and beauty. Prosek travels the globe to tell the story of the eel--from New York to New Zealand; from Europe to Japan and the...
| Author | Holley Bishop |
| ISBN | 0743250222 |
Holley Bishop loves bees. No, more than that: she idolizes them. She marvels at their native abilities and the momentous role these misunderstood and unjustly feared creatures have played in the development of human history. And with her book, Robbing the Bees, she succeeds in making the reader love...
| Author | Susan Brackney |
| ISBN | 0399534962 |
A fascinating guided tour through the history, folklore, and function of the endangered honeybee.
Featured recently in major national news stories because they are disappearing at an alarming rate, bees are the unsung-and absolutely essential- heroes of the food chain. Now they get their...
| Author | Bee Wilson |
| ISBN | 0312342616 |
Ever since men first hunted for honeycomb in rocks and daubed pictures of it on cave walls, the honeybee has been seen as one of the wonders of nature: social, industrious, beautiful, terrifying. No other creature has inspired in humans an identification so passionate, persistent, or fantastical.
The...
Langstroth's Hive and the Honey-Bee: The Classic Beekeeper's Manual
| Author | L.L. Langstroth |
| ISBN | 0486433846 |
This influential guide by the Reverend L. L. Langstroth, "the father of modern beekeeping," revolutionized the practice of beekeeping. Originally published in 1853, his work constitutes the first descriptive treatise of modern bee management — its innovations allowed people to engage in actual...
| Author | Juliet Eilperin |
| ISBN | 0375425128 |
A group of traders huddles around a pile of dried shark fins on a gleaming white floor in Hong Kong. A Papua New Guinean elder shoves off in his hand-carved canoe, ready to summon a shark with ancient magic. A scientist finds a rare shark in Indonesia and forges a deal with villagers so it and other species...
| Author | Hannah Holmes |
| ISBN | 1596910917 |
William Cronon's essay "The Trouble with Wilderness" lays out a critique of the wilderness myth deeply ingrained in the American mind. The gist of the essay is that since humans are part and parcel of nature, it is not historically or ecologically sound to imagine "proper" ecosystems as without human...
| Author | Eric Simons |
| ISBN | 1590202201 |
"One snowy day in Ushuaia, Argentina, the self-proclaimed "southernmost city in the world," at the end of the long trip designed to put as much distance as possible between himself and a frustrating post-college job, Eric Simons picked up a copy of Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. Simons had...
| Author | Thomas D. Seeley |
| ISBN | 0691147213 |
Honeybees make decisions collectively--and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned...
| Author | William Longgood |
| ISBN | 0393305287 |
This was a wonderful book, but I may be biased in saying this due to my obsession with bees. It's very informative in terms of beekeeping, but it goes beyond that. Longgood not only writes about bees, but he also writes about us, humans. He compares the bee's actions to ours very insightfully. It's clear...
| Author | Bernd Heinrich |
| ISBN | 0060742178 |
“Bernd Heinrich is one of our greatest living naturalists in the tradition of Gerald Durrell….A national treasure.”
—Los Angeles Times
Summer World is an intimate, accessible, and eloquent illumination of animal survival in the Summer months from Bernd Heinrich,...
| Author | Mark W. Moffett |
| ISBN | 0520261992 |
Intrepid international explorer, biologist, and photographer Mark W. Moffett, “the Indiana Jones of entomology,” takes us around the globe on a strange and colorful journey in search of the hidden world of ants. In tales from Nigeria, Indonesia, the Amazon, Australia, California, and elsewhere,...
| Author | Rachel Carson |
| ISBN | 0807085472 |
Making America Great Again
From “Mr. Day’s Dismissal”: A Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post, April 22, 1953.
In 1952 Republicans won the White House and immediately began dismantling environmental protections in favor of big business concerns. Day was fired as Secretary...
Letters from the Hive: An Intimate History of Bees, Honey, and Humankind
| Author | Stephen Buchmann |
| ISBN | 0553382667 |
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,...
| Author | Henry Petroski |
| ISBN | 0679760210 |
Petroski reveals the science and engineering--not to mention the politics, egotism, and sheer magic--behind America's great bridges, particularly those constructed during the great bridge-building era starting in the 1870s and continuing through the 1930s. It is the story of the men and women...
Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger
| Author | Margaret Mittelbach |
| ISBN | 0812967690 |
Packing an off-kilter sense of humor and keen scientific minds, Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson, along with renowned artist Alexis Rockman, take off on a postmodern safari. Their mission? Tracking down the elusive Tasmanian tiger. Tragically, this mysterious, striped predator was hunted...
The Illustrated Insectopedia
| Author | Hugh Raffles |
| ISBN | 0375423869 |
A New York Times Notable Book
A stunningly original exploration of the ties that bind us to the beautiful, ancient, astoundingly accomplished, largely unknown, and unfathomably different species with whom we share the world.
For as long as humans have existed, insects have been...
| Author | Marc Bekoff |
| ISBN | 1577316495 |
In this inspirational call to action, Marc Bekoff, the world’s leading expert on animal emotions, gently shows that improving our treatment of animals is a matter of rethinking our many daily decisions and “expanding our compassion footprint.” He demonstrates that animals experience a rich...
The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars
| Author | Christopher Cokinos |
| ISBN | 1585427209 |
God, how I tried to like this book. The concept - natural history/science about meteorites mixed with literary memoir - is basically catnip to me. However, the execution went so, so wrong. A sinking feeling crept in within the first few pages, and before I reached 120 pages, had grown into a roaring despair...
| Author | David Quammen |
| ISBN | 0380717387 |
I promised a second review / rant about people I hate. This is it. This time it's Smug Environmentalists. The hate will manifest as the review goes on.
Natural Acts is a collection of essays, which mostly appeared originally in the authors column in "Outside" magazine. The essays mostly look...
| Author | Gene Wallenstein |
| ISBN | 0471619159 |
An immensely fascinating look at the origins and evolutionary purpose of human pleasure. From our enjoyment of music to our cravings for chocolate, from our love for children and family to our attraction to things of beauty, this book embarks on an intriguing and accessible exploration of the purpose...
| Author | Henry Schlesinger |
| ISBN | 0061442933 |
“Henry Schlesinger is playful and intelligent and obscenely well read.” — Richard Zacks, author of The Pirate Hunter
"Henry Schlesinger’s fascinating and superbly researched history of the battery is the story of civilization as we know it." — Michael Belfiore, author of The...
| Author | Ian McCallum |
| ISBN | 1555916872 |
Bought this book at kirstenbosch botanical gardens in Cape Town. It was sold in connection to an art exhibit entitled " Untamed", works aimed at reconnecting man with nature. Really striking pieces. I am not typically interested in hard biology. This book pulled me in because the author is a psychiatrist,...
| Author | Dan Parry |
| ISBN | 0091928370 |
'It didn't matter that they were now three miles beyond their target site, that communications were dropping out and that they were running low on fuel. All that mattered to Neil as he searched for a safe spot to land was that boulders littered the surface below. "Thirty seconds," called mission control....
Insects have inspired fear, fascination, and enlightenment for centuries. They are capable of incredibly complex behavior, even with brains often the size of a poppy seed. How do they accomplish feats that look like human activity— personality, language, childcare—with completely different...
