Follow Here To Purchase Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World

Authors: Sam Droege and Laurence Packer
Publisher: Voyageur Press
ISBN: 978-0-7603-4738-6

“You’ll discover an entirely new part of nature that lives hidden in plain sight in everyone’s backyards, neighborhoods, and parks. We are literally surrounded by bees, and beauty that we cannot readily see with the naked eye,” Sam Droege and Laurence Packer write in their book, Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World.

This one hundred and sixty page hardbound targets those interested in learning and seeing photographs of over one hundred bees that live in our world. After a table of contents and introduction, there are seven chapters followed by information regarding the photography, resources, acknowledgments, and the authors’ biographies. There is no index at the back of the book to look up a specific bee.

With stunning, close-up, full-color photographs of bees against solid black backgrounds, the artwork is amazing, showing detailed wings, hair follicles, and antennae of these incredible insects.

Divided into the seven sections by continent, bees are listed living in Australia and the Pacific Islands, Africa, South America, Asia, Central America and the Caribbean, Europe, and North America.

Each species’ name is given along with its common name and one to two paragraphs describing features, location, and individual characteristics. Sometimes there are several photographs of one type, shot at different angles. The photographer’s name is included.

Learning that bees are separated into seven families, five of them contain over twenty thousand species with another predicted twenty-thousand worldwide unnamed. Most of them are found in South America.

One example is the Osmia lignaira or Blue Orchard bee from North America. One of the wildest bees used for pollination of fruit orchards, each female visits an average of 60,000 flowers per season. It is grey with light yellow and has long antennae.

This is a fascinating table-top picture book that can be perused casually, learning more about this insect that not only can produce honey but also help pollinate plants that humans eat and enjoy. The ending’s article on how the bees were photograph is also interesting. Another plus is all artwork is in the public domain so can be downloaded free of charge, copied, or reprinted, offering an educational tool for young ones.

Thanks to Bookpleasures and Voyageur Press for furnishing this complimentary book in exchange for a review based on the reader’s honest opinion.