| Description |
1 online resource (186 pages) : illustrations, maps |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction -- Out of the dark -- A difficult diet -- The chemistry of social regulation -- The reproductive machine -- The worker bee in a variety of guises -- Diseases, pests, and parasites -- The idiosyncrasies of sex and reproducion -- Apiculture and long-suffering bees -- Dark sides of honey bee science -- A silver lining for the future of bees? |
| Summary |
Honey bees have been described as exceptionally clever, well-organized, mutualistic, collaborative, busy, efficient--in short a perfect society. While the colony is indeed a marvel of harmonious, efficient organization, it also has a considerable dark side. Authors Robin Moritz and Robin Crewe write about the life history of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, highlighting conflict rather than harmony, failure rather than success, from the perspective of the individual worker in the colony. When one looks carefully, the honey bee colony is far from being perfect. As with any complex social system, honeybee societies are prone to error, robbery, cheating, and social parasitism. Nevertheless, the hive gets by remarkably well in spite of many seemingly odd biological features. The perfection that is perceived to exist in the honeybee's social organization is the function of a focus on the colony as a whole rather than exploring the idiosyncrasies of its individual members. The Dark Side of the Hive thus focuses on the role of the individual rather than that of the collective. Moritz and Crewe dissect the various careers that individual male and female honey bees can take and their role in colony organization. Competition between individuals using both physical and chemical force drives colonial organization. This book deals with individual mistakes, maladaptations and evolutionary dead-ends that are also part of the bees' life. The story told about these dark sides of the colony spans the full range of biological disciplines ranging from genomics to systems biology. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
Honeybee -- Life cycles.
|
|
Honeybee -- Life cycles. |
|
Honeybee. |
|
SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Zoology -- General. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
|
| Other Form: |
Print version: Moritz, Robin F.A. Dark side of the hive. New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2018] 9780190872281 (DLC) 2018010888 (OCoLC)1031054471 |
| ISBN |
9780190872298 (electronic book) |
|
0190872292 (electronic book) |
|
9780190872281 (hardcover) |
|
0190872284 (hardcover) |
|
