We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.
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.
In this gem of a book, award-winning writer Bee Wilson explores the magical world of the honeybee. From the hive to honey, from beekeepers to honeymooners, via Aristotle, Shakespeare, Napoleon and Sherlock Holmes, here is a book that delights and surprises at every turn. And there is even a recipe or two.
In this gem of a book, award-winning writer Bee Wilson explores the magical world of the honeybee. From the hive to honey, from beekeepers to honeymooners, via Aristotle, Shakespeare, Napoleon and Sherlock Holmes, here is a book that delights and surprises at every turn. And there is even a recipe or two.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
A light and delicious book, in an exceptionally pretty honey-coloured jacket gilded with bees, and it is written with sparkle and charm ... some of her best writing is about the deliciousness of honey, and it is hard to read her chapter of recipes without drooling.
Can hardly be bettered.
Bee Wilson's little book is a small hive of treasure. It is a sweet celebration of our appreciation of the honeybee
Fascinating, careful, witty and intelligent ... Riveting ... Almost any paragraph chosen at random is entertaining
Richly informative and beautifully written
Wonderfully entertaining reading.
Erudite and elegant ... Bee Wilson writes fluently and engagingly and she manages to present a great deal of curious information in a form as easy to swallow as a spoonful of the finest Attic honey ... The book is also exceptionally pleasing to look at and hold.
A fascinating tribute to the bee
This biography is immensely detailed, intelligent, generous, sympathetic, and often entertaining...Betjeman fans...will delight in Hillier's monumental work
Entertaining and thoroughly worthwhile
Fascinating
This biography is immensely detailed, intelligent, generous, sympathetic, and often entertaining...Betjeman fans...will delight in Hillier's monumental work
A charming, fascinating pot-pourri of all things beelike
Erudite, informative, accurate and a delight to read.
Wilson presents the history of the honeybee in this engaging and anecdote-filled account
'Wilson has a fine eye for character sketches'
'For a moment you may feel, as I did, that part of Wilson's research for this book involved turning into a bee for a few days ... Amazing.' -- Nick Lezard
'Beautifully produced and well-researched ...leaving readers to marvel'.
'There are delights and surprises on virtually every page of this gem of a book'
'Bee Wilson conveys a real sense of the relationship between bees and us, and her short, punchy chapters are witty and fascinating'
'Wilson's sprightly hymn to the honeybee ... conveys ... the marvel, complexity and ultimate unknowability that has made the beehive such a fascination
'This is the Christmas book with a real sting.'
She manages to present a great deal of information in a form as easy to swallow as a spoonful of honey.
Buzzes with info and has the prettiest dust-jacket of the third millennium
Endlessly fascinating
'A riveting read . . .this beguiling book is more a history of ideas than an actual study . . .buzzing with fascinating facts'
'Bee Wilson recounts all the weird and wonderful things people have believed about bees'
'Juicy reading . . .worth buying for the illustration on p. 204 alone'
'Bee Wilson . . .connects readers' imaginations with their salivary glands'
'A brilliant examination of a natural phenomenon we all take for granted'
'Delightful'
'Fascinating and readable. Wilson writes with flair and wit about everything from Pliny to pollination; her love of honey in all its sheer sensuousness shines through'
'Can hardly be bettered . . .Principally a writer on food, Wilson none the less knows a lot about keeping honeybees, and also about their biology and natural history, waxworks and candles, and the changing shape of the beehive'
'Beautifully written and absorbing'