round-up of Books on Bees

"It may well be that in the face of the honey bee, obsession is the only sane response available, reassuring evidence of true perception. Consider, for instance, this brute fact: that 16-ounce honey bear in your pantry exists only because tens of thousands of bees flew some 112,000 miles in a relentless, unquestioned pursuit of nectar gathered from 4.5 million flowers. Every one of those foraging bees was female. By the time the life of each ended—they live all of six weeks during honey-making season—each bee flew about 500 miles in twenty days, the span each lives outside the hive..."