The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us - Hardcover

'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.' -- The Tablet 20040925 'Bee Wilson's little book is a small hive of treasure. It is a sweet celebration of our appreciation of the honeybee' -- Dumfries and Galloway Standard 20040910 'Wonderfully entertaining reading.' -- The Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 20041101 'A fascinating tribute to the bee' -- Woman & Home 20041101 'Wilson presents the history of the honeybee in this engaging and anecdote-filled account' -- Publishing News 20050520 'A gem of a book.' -- The Bookseller 20050520 'A charming, fascinating pot-pourri of all things beelike' -- Bookseller 20041129 'Bee Wilson conveys a real sense of the relationship between bees and us, and her short, punchy chapters are witty and fascinating' -- Easy Living 20051001 'This is the Christmas book with a real sting.' -- Saga 20051106 'This biography is immensely detailed, intelligent, generous, sympathetic, and often entertaining...Betjeman fans...will delight in Hillier's monumental work' -- Literary Review 20041001 'Beautifully produced and well-researched ...leaving readers to marvel'. -- Good Book Guide 20041001 'Richly informative and beautifully written' -- The Times 'She manages to present a great deal of information in a form as easy to swallow as a spoonful ofhoney.' -- Tom Fort, Sunday Telegraph 20040829 'Entertaining and thoroughly worthwhile' -- The Sunday Times 20040905 'Can hardly be bettered.' -- Guardian 20040918 'Fascinating, careful, witty and intelligent ! Almost any paragraph chosen at random is entertaining' -- Prue Leith, New Statesman 20040918 'Fascinating' -- Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times 20041128 'Buzzes with info and has the prettiest dust-jacket of the third millennium' -- Barry Humphries, Sunday Telegraph 20041128 'Endlessly fascinating' -- Mail on Sunday 20041128 'Erudite, informative, accurate and a delight to read.' -- Times Literary Supplement 20050304 'Beautifully produced and well-researched ...leaving readers to marvel'. -- Good Book Guide 20050101 'Wilson has a fine eye for character sketches.' -- The Times 20050917 '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 -- Guardian 20050917 'There are delights and surprises on virtually every page of this gem of a book' -- Sunday Telegraph 20050911 'Wilson's sprightly hymn to the honeybee ! conveys ! the marvel, complexity and ultimate unknowability that has made the beehive such a fascination' -- Independent 20050911 'A riveting read ...this beguiling book is more a history of ideas than an actual study ...buzzing with fascinating facts' -- BBC Gardener's World Magazine 20041001 'Bee Wilson recounts all the weird and wonderful things people have believed about bees.' -- History Today 20061101 'Juicy reading ... worth buying for the illustration on p. 204 alone.' -- The Spectator 20061101 'Bee Wilson... connects readers' imaginations with their salivary glands.' -- New Statesman 20061101 'A brilliant examination of a natural phenomenon we all take for granted' -- Sunday Express 20061101 'Delightful' -- Economist 20061101 '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' -- Scotsman 20061101 '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' -- Tom Fort, Sunday Telegraph 20061101 'Beautifully written and absorbing' -- New Statesman 20061101 '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.' -- The Guardian 20061101

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 Hive recounts the astonishing tale of all the weird and wonderful things that humans believed about bees and their 'society' over the ages. It ranges from the honey delta of ancient Egypt to the Tupelo forests of modern Florida, taking in a cast of characters including Alexander the Great and Napoleon, Sherlock Holmes and Mohammed Ali. The Hive is also a history of ideas, taking us through the evolution of science, religion and politics, and a social history which explores the bee's impact on food and human ritual. In this beautifully illustrated book, Bee Wilson shows how humans will always view the hive as a miniature universe with order and purpose, and look to it to make sense of their own.