Honeybees, a Natural and less natural history

On evolution, ecology and the behaviour of honey bees

Jacques van Alphen describes the research that unravelled the behaviour of honey bees. Fascinating stories! How, for example, can a hive of several tens of thousands of individuals function without a leader? And what about the complicated sexual life of honey bees and, a problem Darwin was already considering, what is the ideal ratio of numbers of males to females? All aspects of the complicated sexual life turn out to be important in making bees resilient to new diseases and parasites.

In the US and Western Europe, honey bee colonies are still dying from varroa mite infections while bees in Southern Africa and South America quickly became resistant to it. This appears to have everything to do with the way honey bees are kept and bred.

Van Alphen suggests solutions for making honey bees sustainably resistant to diseases and parasites, he makes proposals to improve the welfare of honey bees and suggests how to minimise the threat of honey bees to the diversity of pollinators.

This book does not avoid the problems arising from honey bee keeping. Indeed, it puts forward bold solutions to them.