Jürgen Tautz, renowned German bee researcher explains how bees communicate. Exciting and surprising new insights on communication between bees.
During the history of bee research, scientists have peered deep into the inner life of bee colonies and learned much about the behaviour of these insects. Above all, the bee waggle dance has become a famous and extensively discussed phenomenon. Nevertheless, recent insights reveal that while bees are social insects inside the hive they also communicate with one another outside the hive. In this book, Jürgen Tautz, renowned German bee researcher, provides an entertaining, fresh and enlightened account for lay and professional readers, not only about the fascinating dance language but also about additional remarkable phenomena concerning information exchange between bees.
From the author of the bestseller “The Buzz about Bees”.
“The Language of Bees” assembles, for the first time, a complete overview of how bees understand one another. Although communication biology research on bees has so far concentrated largely on events within the hive, this book directs attention as well, to how bees communicate in the field outside the hive. The reader learns which steps new bee recruits take to reach the feeder a dancing forager has advertised. The book analyses the status of work on the bee dance published over the last 100 years and orders the essential findings as building blocks into a coherent new concept of how bees find their target. In addition, the historical survey of research on the “Bee Language” explains how several contradictory and incomplete hypotheses can still survive.
A fresh point of view on one of the most remarkable behavioural performances in the animal kingdom.
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz is an expert on bees, sociobiologist, animal behaviourist and emeritus professor at the Biozentrum, University of Würzburg. He is a bestseller author and recipient of many awards of excellence for his successful communication of science to a wide public.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Preface.- The struggle for insight.- How research on honeybee communication began.- Research on Bees Flourishes with Karl von Frisch.- The dance language remains a controversial idea.- James L. Gould’s experiments explain some but not all difficulties.- Research focuses on the inside of the hive.- Measurement of the dance figures in Space and Time.- Bees and vectors.- Robo-bees and radar techniques.- An interim balance sheet.- Swarm behaviour shows bees communicate not only through the dance.- Rethinking communication between bees.- Conclusion.- Appendix.
Über den Autor
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz, is a bee expert, sociobiologist, animal behaviourist and emeritus professor at the Biozentrum, University of Würzburg. He is a world-leading scientist with a remarkable number of high class publications and a gifted communicator of science. His writing and popular lectures have twice been honoured by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) who included him among the best scientists in Europe in communicating science to the public. Furthermore, he received the prestigious Communicator Award of the German Research Foundation.
As gifted communicator and leading scientist, Juergen Tautz has much in common with Carl Sagan, Richard P Feynman, Konrad Lorenz, Vince Dethier and others famous for their work in popularizing science and making it accessible to all.
Dr. David C. Sandeman (Translator): Neurobiologist, retired from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Multiply awarded, with a long publicationlist on invertebrate nervous systems, behaviour, physiology, neuroanatomy and neurogenesis in adult organisms. Translated the longseller ‚Buzz about bees‘ and the “Honey Factory”.