The Nature of Things

The Bee: A Natural History by Noah Wilson-Rich My rating: 4 of 5 stars The argument could be and has been made that bees are essential to life on Earth as we know it. They are most certainly crucial to the reproduction and diversity of flowering plants. The creatures are known to pollinate more than 130 fruit, vegetable, and seed crops that we rely on to survive and those plants make economic contributions in the tens of billions of dollars every year. Therefore, it is very important on many levels that we have a healthy population of bees. But bees are in trouble. They are dying off at an alarming rate, and although in some cases the cause of the die-off has not been absolutely pinned down, scientists are pretty much in agreement that pesticides and the practices of modern agriculture are the main culprits. In The Bee: A Natural History , Noah Wilson-Rich explores some of the challenges faced by bees and how we can ameliorate them in order to aid the bees. This book primarily focuses...