Bees: Heroes of the Garden

Honey bees, bumblebees, mining bees, dwarf bees, carpenter, leafcutter, and mason bees: bees come in many different types, with more than 16,000 species worldwide. The bees we are most familiar with, bumblebees and honey bees, live in colonies and play a major role in pollinating the crops, plants, and flowers around us. And bees produce honey, reputedly the food of the gods--a function of bees' lifecycle, which humans have exploited for millennia. Many bees today are domesticated, and beekeepers collect honey, beeswax, pollen, and royal jelly from hives for human use. A typical bee produces a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. Bees can communicate many ways through the movement of their wings and bodies, most famously with the "waggle dance," where they make figure-eight circles to let other bees know the direction and distance of nectar. Bees is an outstanding collection of photographs showing these fascinating insects in their natural habitat.