Friendly Bees, Ferocious Bees

By Mona Kerby

Friendly Bees, Ferocious Bees will enthrall youngsters by taking them on an amazing journey into the wonderful world of honeybees. Meticulously detailed coverage of queens, drones, and workers; life within the hive; communication among bees; beekeeping, bee diseases, and bee enemies; and a special section of recipes calling for honey. This new edition, revised and updated, will enchant readers seeking narrative science nonfiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mona Kerby
• Release date: Feb 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732044814

Mona Kerby

Mona Kerby writes award-winning fiction, nonfiction, and picture books for children. She is a college professor and has been a kindergarten teacher and an elementary school librarian. She has received the Texas Library Association Siddie Joe Johnson Award for outstanding achievement in children’s library service, the Outstanding Teacher Award at Little Elementary School, and the Outstanding Teacher Award at McDaniel College in Maryland where she holds the L. Stanley Bowlsbey Endowed Chair in Education and Graduate and Professional Studies. Her 38 Weeks Till Summer Vacation won the Minnesota Maud Hart Lovelace Award and was nominated to the master lists of the South Dakota Prairie Pasque Award and the Wyoming Indian Paintbrush Award. She has written biographies on Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Samuel Morse, and Beverly Sills. Her books Asthma and Cockroaches were named Outstanding Trade Books for Students in K-12 in Science. Owney, the Mail-Pouch Pooch won the California Young Readers Award and the Vermont Red Clover Award; was nominated to five state reading award lists in Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Tennessee; was named to the Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year List; and received the Parents’ Choice Silver Honor Award. See www.monakerby.com for more information.

Book preview

FRIENDLY BEES, FEROCIOUS BEES

by

Mona Kerby

Smashwords Edition

– MK Publications –

Published on Smashwords by:

MK Publications

Westminster, Maryland

Friendly Bees, Ferocious Bees

Copyright 1987 by Mona Kerby

Originally published by Franklin Watts in New York

ISBN 0-531-10303-X

Revised and updated 2017

ISBN 978-1-7320448-1-4 (ebook, all formats)

ISBN 978-0-9993790-3-5 (print)

Western honeybee: iStockPhoto / GlobalP

Honeybee anatomy: Wikipedia Commons

Honeybee development: iStockPhoto / lukaves

Worker, drones, queen: Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Honeybees at hive entrance: iStockPhoto / lamyai

Honeybee on aster: iStockPhoto / LightShaper

Beekeeper: iStockPhoto / flyparade

Group of bees: iStockPhoto / DanielPrudek

Honeydipper: iStockPhoto / PhotoAllel

Book cover: Elizabeth Beeton

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Apis Mellifera

Chapter 2: Parts of the Honeybee

Chapter 3: The Queen, the Drones, and the Young

Chapter 4: Life of the Hive

Chapter 5: Communication

Chapter 6: Beekeeping

Chapter 7: Diseases and Enemies

Chapter 8: Killer Bees

Chapter 9: Bee Hunts

Chapter 10: Cooking with Honey

Glossary

About the Author

Chapter 1:

Apis Mellifera

We are supposedly the smartest species on Earth. Yet, we know relatively little about most other species.

Take, for instance, honeybees. Some people live an entire lifetime and know just two things about them–that they sting and that they make honey.

The scientific name for honeybees is Apis mellifera, which means bee honey-bearer. But did you know that bees die when they sting you? Did you know that bees have jobs? Did you know that bees air-condition their homes and have done so for millions of years? Did you know that bees communicate with each other? Did you know that honeybees are the only insects that produce a food that humans eat, and that honey is one of the purest foods in the world?

Western honey bee, Apis mellifera, carrying pollen

For at least 17,000 years, humans have risked getting stung for the pleasure of eating honey. In 15,000 B.C., an unknown artist drew a picture on a cave in Valencia, Spain. The picture showed two men climbing up to a beehive. One held a basket. Bees buzzed around him as he robbed the hive. In 3,000 B.C., Egyptian tombs were inscribed with pictures of honeybees. Honey was found in some of those tombs.

It was still good. The Bible referred to a land of milk and honey. Athletes in the early Greek Olympics ate honey for energy. And Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher, wrote that honey is a dew distilled from the stars and rainbow. Early people knew that honey was delicious and healthy.

Throughout the centuries, these insects have fascinated people. Many scientists have studied them. Much of what was once believed to be true was found false. Democritus, a Greek philosopher before Aristotle’s time, wrote that if you wanted some bees, you should kill an ox and lock it up for thirty-two days. Bees would come from the ox, he declared. As late as 1842, some people still believed that to be true.

We know more about honeybees today. In this book, you will learn what scientists know about honeybees. You will learn how a bee makes honey. You will learn how