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  • The Lives of Bees

  • The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild
  • Written by: Thomas D. Seeley
  • Narrated by: William Hope
  • Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (16 ratings)

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The Lives of Bees

Written by: Thomas D. Seeley
Narrated by: William Hope
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Publisher's Summary

How the lives of wild honey bees offer vital lessons for saving the world’s managed bee colonies

Humans have kept honey bees in hives for millennia, yet only in recent decades have biologists begun to investigate how these industrious insects live in the wild. The Lives of Bees is Thomas Seeley’s captivating story of what scientists are learning about the behavior, social life, and survival strategies of honey bees living outside the beekeeper’s hive - and how wild honey bees may hold the key to reversing the alarming die-off of the planet’s managed honey bee populations.

Seeley, a world authority on honey bees, sheds light on why wild honey bees are still thriving while those living in managed colonies are in crisis. Drawing on the latest science, as well as insights from his own pioneering fieldwork, he describes in extraordinary detail how honey bees live in nature and reveals how this differs significantly from their lives under the management of beekeepers. Seeley presents an entirely new approach to beekeeping - Darwinian Beekeeping - which enables honey bees to use the toolkit of survival skills their species has acquired over the past 30 million years, and to evolve solutions to the new challenges they face today. He tells beekeepers how to use the principles of natural selection to guide their practices, and he offers a new vision of how beekeeping can better align with the natural habits of honey bees.

Engaging and deeply personal, The Lives of Bees reveals how we can become better custodians of honey bees and make use of their resources in ways that enrich their lives, as well as our own.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Thomas D. Seeley (P)2019 Princeton University Press
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What the critics say

"A wealth of information about honeybees based on decades of scientific research." (Kirkus)

What listeners say about The Lives of Bees

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Awesome material

I’ve learned a great deal. I always wondered about the honeybees in the wild in this book really explained thank you very much.

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Excellent for anyone, trying to improve their practices or build understanding

I very much like the gentle delivery and researched approach of Thomas Seeley. His communication is easily understood, even for non beekeepers. I enjoy the way Dr. Seeley leaves room for those seeking to improve on the collective body of information, while effectively supporting his existing knowledge. I feel we can all learn better, if we follow this excellent example of leadership. Thanks for the great book.

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Very informative if you are a beekeeper

As a beekeeper I was very happy with the overviews of various studies and lessons learned in the historical and present day methods of beekeeping. I suspect that many of the lessons in this book will be implemented in future generations to better our colony resiliency against pest and disease.

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Not a Book

This is just a Summary of research and the constant incessant reading of every single measurement, data point, and figure in both metric and imperial is enough to drive you insane.

If you want to learn about bees and you are not an actual working scientist do not read this book.

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It could've been an article.

Author wastes tons of time with repetitive data. Constantly repeating distances and areas in both Miles and Km is only one instance of This. The organization of the book necessitates, apparently, repeatedly referencing concepts or things, and then assuring the reader it will be explained and discussed in the last 2 chapters of the book. This is one mans, rather dull, memoir of studying Bees. He also doesn't understand the area of a circle, as evidenced in chapter 2 when he inverts the meaning of the growth rings of 110 year old trees he felled. FYI, a 22 inch diameter circle is less than half the area of a 32 inch diameter one...

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