Overview

Jürgen Tautz, renowned German bee researcher explains how bees communicate. Exciting and surprising new insights on communication between bees.  During the history of bee research, scientists have peered deep into the inner life of bee colonies and learned much about the behaviour of these insects. Above all, the bee waggle dance has become a famous and extensively discussed phenomenon. Nevertheless, recent insights reveal that while bees are social insects inside the hive they also communicate with one another outside the hive. In this book, Jürgen Tautz, renowned German bee researcher, provides an entertaining, fresh and enlightened account for lay and professional readers, not only about the fascinating dance language but also about additional remarkable phenomena concerning information exchange between bees.   From the author of the bestseller “The Buzz about Bees”.  “The Language of Bees” assembles, for the first time, a complete overview of how bees understand one another. Although communication biology research on bees has so far concentrated largely on events within the hive, this book directs attention as well, to how bees communicate in the field outside the hive. The reader learns which steps new bee recruits take to reach the feeder a dancing forager has advertised. The book analyses the status of work on the bee dance published over the last 100 years and orders the essential findings as building blocks into a coherent new concept of how bees find their target. In addition, the historical survey of research on the “Bee Language” explains how several contradictory and incomplete hypotheses can still survive.  A fresh point of view on one of the most remarkable behavioural performances in the animal kingdom.  Observation from a different viewpoint leads to previously unknown insights. Such new perspectives clearly reveal both how large the gaps in our knowledge still are inrelation to the language of bees and in which direction research must take to complete the picture of one of the most impressive behavioural accomplishments in animals.  Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz is an expert on bees, sociobiologist, animal behaviourist and emeritus professor at the Biozentrum, University of Würzburg. He is a bestseller author and recipient of many awards of excellence for his successful communication of science to a wide public. 

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9783031152443

Table of Contents

Reviews

“A book dedicated entirely to the story of the waggle dance. The book starts with a careful description of the history of bee research and Tautz makes a special effort to deliver the science ‘as is’ and avoid recycling previous interpretations. … it is long enough to make you wonder what makes this topic worthy of an entire book.” (Etya Amsalem, American Entomologist, Vol. 69 (2), 2023) “Tautz is to be applauded for attempting to write a synthesis of what has been learned over the past 100 years about how honey bees, like human beings, are able to direct groupmates to important places in the environment. Worker honey bees neither lead others, nor make trails, to these places. Instead, both they and we can ‘simply’ tell others where to find good food sources, snug homesites, and other sites of importance.” (Thomas D. Seeley, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 98 (2), June, 2023) “The book sets out to explore, using available knowledge, how recruited foragers are successful in getting to a food source that they have been made aware of. Each chapter of the book is broken down into clear subsections, well-illustrated with appropriate explanatory figures and photographs. The book has a very useful glossary and very detailed references to nearly 300 relevant studies.” (Ian Campbell, BBKA News - The newsletter of The British Beekeepers' Association, March, 2023) “This is quite simply a masterclass of a book. It deals with the whole history of research on communication in honey bees from the earliest observations of Aristotle to the present day and is both authoritative and accessible. … I recommend this book to anyone who keeps bees, watches bees or is just fascinated by insects in general.” (George C. McGavin, BeeCraft, December, 2022) “I believe that this book is an essential read for anybody who is interested in honeybees, but it is also of great interest to a more general readership who may wish to understand more about the amazing world of social insects.” (Mary Montaut, The Beekeepers Quarterly, Vol. 150, December, 2022) “In this book renowned German bee researcher Jürgen Tautz provides an entertaining, fresh and enlightening account for both lay and professional readers, not only about the fascinating dance language but also about additional remarkable phenomena concerning information exchange between bees.” (Farming Scotland Magazine, December, 2022) “The book is richly illustrated. … I really enjoyed reading this book, and thanks to the many references to research over time on the topic, including research done by for example Thomas Seeley, it deepened and broadened my understanding of how bees communicates with each other.” (Paul Lindström, The Apiarist, October, 2022) “The book concludes with an excellent glossary and a magnificently comprehensive list of further references. … a text comes along that stands out from all others, writtenby a dedicated researcher possessed of the talent required to convey complex science to a wide audience. I take my hat off to Jürgen Tautz who has accomplished just that, and the world of bee research is all the better for it.” (David M. Gascoigne, travelswithbirds.blogspot.com, August 29, 2022)

“A book dedicated entirely to the story of the waggle dance. The book starts with a careful description of the history of bee research and Tautz makes a special effort to deliver the science ‘as is’ and avoid recycling previous interpretations. … it is long enough to make you wonder what makes this topic worthy of an entire book.” (Etya Amsalem, American Entomologist, Vol. 69 (2), 2023) “Tautz is to be applauded for attempting to write a synthesis of what has been learned over the past 100 years about how honey bees, like human beings, are able to direct groupmates to important places in the environment. Worker honey bees neither lead others, nor make trails, to these places. Instead, both they and we can ‘simply’ tell others where to find good food sources, snug homesites, and other sites of importance.” (Thomas D. Seeley, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 98 (2), June, 2023) “The book sets out to explore, using available knowledge, how recruited foragers are successful in getting to a food source that they have been made aware of. Each chapter of the book is broken down into clear subsections, well-illustrated with appropriate explanatory figures and photographs. The book has a very useful glossary and very detailed references to nearly 300 relevant studies.” (Ian Campbell, BBKA News - The newsletter of The British Beekeepers' Association, March, 2023) “This is quite simply a masterclass of a book. It deals with the whole history of research on communication in honey bees from the earliest observations of Aristotle to the present day and is both authoritative and accessible. … I recommend this book to anyone who keeps bees, watches bees or is just fascinated by insects in general.” (George C. McGavin, BeeCraft, December, 2022) “I believe that this book is an essential read for anybody who is interested in honeybees, but it is also of great interest to a more general readership who may wish to understand more about the amazing world of social insects.” (Mary Montaut, The Beekeepers Quarterly, Vol. 150, December, 2022) “In this book renowned German bee researcher Jürgen Tautz provides an entertaining, fresh and enlightening account for both lay and professional readers, not only about the fascinating dance language but also about additional remarkable phenomena concerning information exchange between bees.” (Farming Scotland Magazine, December, 2022) “The book is richly illustrated. … I really enjoyed reading this book, and thanks to the many references to research over time on the topic, including research done by for example Thomas Seeley, it deepened and broadened my understanding of how bees communicates with each other.” (Paul Lindström, The Apiarist, October, 2022) “The book concludes with an excellent glossary and a magnificently comprehensive list of further references. … a text comes along that stands out from all others, written by a dedicated researcher possessed of the talent required to convey complex science to a wide audience. I take my hat off to Jürgen Tautz who has accomplished just that, and the world of bee research is all the better for it.” (David M. Gascoigne, travelswithbirds.blogspot.com, August 29, 2022)

Author Information

"Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz, is a bee expert, sociobiologist, animal behaviourist and emeritus professor at the Biozentrum, University of Würzburg. He is a world-leading scientist with a remarkable number of high class publications and a gifted communicator of science. His writing and popular lectures have twice been honoured by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) who included him among the best scientists in Europe in communicating science to the public. Furthermore, he received the prestigious Communicator Award of the German Research Foundation.As gifted communicator and leading scientist, Juergen Tautz has much in common with Carl Sagan, Richard P Feynman, Konrad Lorenz, Vince Dethier and others famous for their work in popularizing science and making it accessible to all. Dr. David C. Sandeman (Translator): Neurobiologist, retired from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Multiply awarded, with a long publicationlist on invertebrate nervous systems, behaviour, physiology, neuroanatomy and neurogenesis in adult organisms. Translated the longseller ""Buzz about bees"" and the “Honey Factory”."

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