Bees: Nature's Little Wonders.

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Sure they can sting, but look at the positives: all that honey, lots of useful wax, and they’re such great symbols for the industrious lifestyle. “There’s poetry to bees,” according to Savage, their self-appointed PR agent.

Worldwide there are at least 16,000 distinct species of bees. Not all are as cute as the widely known bumblebee, that fuzzy teddy bear with wings, or the hardworking honeybee with its weird home life (Queens? Workers? Drones?—Is this science fiction?). Even most bee species find this odd, preferring the solitary life to the hive scene. Savage concentrates on the honeybee (“bright little sparks of wonderment”), reviewing the many experiments conducted to gain understanding of their busy-little-bee behaviours, social life and communication techniques. She explains the waggle, tremble, and round dances, what the foragers look for in a new home, and how the decision to relocate is shared. There’s mention of the recent (2006) sequencing of the bee genome and catastrophic collapse of bee colonies in North America.

The book is an assembly of scientific data, descriptions of experiments, artwork, colour photos, poetry, quotations, history, and legend, all blended with a light touch, sprinkled with a sense of wonder, and served in a visually attractive format.