When we hear the word “bee” we’re likely to imagine the common honey bee or bumblebee. But there are as many as 25,000 recognized bee species in the world—more than birds and mammals combined. Most of these lesser-known bees don’t live in hives, many don’t sting and relatively few make honey. But since nearly all depend on flowering plants for their food, they have evolved into the most proficient pollinators on the planet.
“The Good Bee” (Michael O’Mara, 192 pages, $16.95), by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum, examines the gamut of apian species, from mining bees that live in earthen burrows to vulture bees with a taste for carrion. Through sharp prose and precise line drawings, the authors address such subjects as bees’ evolution from wasps, about 100 million years ago, and their singular anatomy, which includes five eyes for navigating by the sun, a strawlike proboscis for sipping nectar and a furry coat for collecting pollen, the hive’s main source of protein.
