The Wisdom of the Hive: The Social Physiology of Honey Bee Colonies (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "This book is about how a colony of honey bees works as a unified whole..." (more)
Key Phrases: pollen reserve, nectar influx, richer feeder, After Seeley, Cranberry Lake Biological Station, Brood Brood (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book is about the inner workings of one of nature's most complex animal societies: the honey bee colony. It describes and illustrates the results of more than fifteen years of elegant experimental studies conducted by the author. In his investigations, Thomas Seeley has sought the answer to the question of how a colony of bees is organized to gather its resources. The results of his research--including studies of the shaking signal, tremble dance, and waggle dance, and other, more subtle means by which information is exchanged among bees--offer the clearest, most detailed picture available of how a highly integrated animal society works. (American Bee Journal )

Seeley's well-developed cycle of observation and experiment, modelling, computer simulation and prediction formulation shows an exemplary approach to sociobiology...The book is clearly a labour of love, recounting marvels of integration and making for a pleasing contrast to the spreading orthodoxy of the social insect colony as a cauldron of conflict, where insects stepping out of line are punished or have their eggs eaten.
--Ross H. Crozier (Nature )

I recommend this book highly to behavioral biologists and all scientist interested in understanding the organization of complex systems, at both the macro- and microscopic levels...[An] important book...It is a labor of love that radiates Seeley's passion both for his beloved honey bees and for the research that can be performed with them to illuminate the mysteries of social life.
--Gene E. Robinson (American Scientist )

[A] well-written book...contain[ing] a wealth of detail. (Apicultural Abstracts )

They say good scientists are judged not by their answers but by their questions. By this measure Tom Seeley must be amongst the great bee scientists. He has asked the questions whose answers illustrate the great wisdom of the hive...Space here does not allow me to pay proper justice to this marvellous book. Most beekeepers already think their bees are pretty smart--this book will only increase your admiration. A good value textbook and essential reading for all who dare to lecture on honeybee biology. (Beekeeping & Development [UK] )

A terrific contribution that will build on the work of Martin Lindauer and Karl von Frisch. Seeley stands on their shoulders, but he is seeing new vistas. Others have asked what bees know, but Seeley explores new ground, asking how bees handle information and how this leads to reallocation of labor in the hive.
--Timothy H. Goldsmith, Yale University

Product Description

This book is about the inner workings of one of nature's most complex animal societies: the honey bee colony. It describes and illustrates the results of more than fifteen years of elegant experimental studies conducted by the author. In his investigations, Thomas Seeley has sought the answer to the question of how a colony of bees is organized to gather its resources. The results of his research--including studies of the shaking signal, tremble dance, and waggle dance, and other, more subtle means by which information is exchanged among bees--offer the clearest, most detailed picture available of how a highly integrated animal society works. By showing how several thousand bees function together as an integrated whole to collect the nectar, pollen, and water that sustain the life of the hive, Seeley sheds light on one of the central puzzles of biology: how units at one level of organization can work together to form a higher-level entity.

In explaining why a hive is organized the way it is, Seeley draws on the literature of molecular biology, cell biology, animal and human sociology, economics, and operations research. He compares the honey bee colony to other functionally organized groups: multicellular organisms, colonies of marine invertebrates, and human societies. All highly cooperative groups share basic problems: of allocating their members among tasks so that more urgent needs are met before less urgent ones, and of coordinating individual actions into a coherent whole. By comparing such systems in different species, Seeley argues, we can deepen our understanding of the mechanisms that make close cooperation a reality.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (February 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674953762
• ISBN-13: 978-0674953765
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 8.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #716,713 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Amazing Book about Bees, April 21, 2000

By A Customer

This is a special scientific book, for the author tells the reader not only WHAT we know about the inner workings of honey bee colonies, but also HOW we know it. Through simple but graceful writing, accompanied by many diagrams, Seeley takes you on a step-by-step journey through his experimental analysis of how the members of a bee colony work together to gather the nectar, pollen, and water that they need. I think anyone interested in seeing how a human has dissected the complex internal organization of a bee hive will find this a rewarding read. I especially liked chapter 6, where Seeley explains that the bees have several kinds of communication dances, not just the famous waggle dance, to activate more bees for making honey.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to make a machine that makes honey, November 5, 2004

By	Lee Kamentsky (Arlington, Ma USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Thomas Seeley has written an amazing book that will work for many different types of readers at many levels. The book outlines experiments that Seeley did with prepared hives to demonstrate the system dynamics of how a hive adapts to the resources around it. Seeley's style is easy for a layperson to read with clear charts and pictures. This is a great book to savor; read a chapter, then daydream about how these creatures could be constructed to perform their functions.

I got a lot out of the book. First of all, it's a narrative of Seeley's experimental method; he labels a hive (puts the bees in a hive in a refrigerator, pulls them out one by one and puts identifying tags on each), sets up feeding stations with different concentrations of sugar at different distances, then observes behavior to demonstrate how individual variation in bees optimizes the hive's collection of resources. Second, it's a pretty good introduction to bee physiology and the hive's social system. Seeley describes experiments tracking the individual jobs of bees as they age and, in doing so, he covers how and what the bees do. Third, Seeley reviews and describes the previous literature, giving a history of behavioral study of bees. Finally, he develops his thesis regarding the hive as a system, with parallels to systems theory and studies of hierarchies of organization.

This is a fun read; easy to get through, thought provoking, giving you appreciation for the author's work and for the creatures that are his subject.