As seen on PBS's American Spring LIVE, the award-winning author of The Triumph of Seeds and Feathers presents a natural and cultural history of bees: the buzzing wee beasties that make the world go round. Bees are like oxygen: ubiquitous, essential, and, for the most part, unseen. While we might overlook them, they lie at the heart of relationships that bind the human and natural worlds. In Buzz, the beloved Thor Hanson takes us on a journey that begins 125 million years ago, when a wasp first dared to feed pollen to its young. From honeybees and bumbles to lesser-known diggers, miners, leafcutters, and masons, bees have long been central to our harvests, our mythologies, and our very existence. They've given us sweetness and light, the beauty of flowers, and as much as a third of the foodstuffs we eat. And, alarmingly, they are at risk of disappearing. As informative and enchanting as the waggle dance of a honeybee, Buzz shows us why all bees are wonders to celebrate and protect. Read this book and you'll never overlook them again.

After her mentor in the honey business is found suspiciously stung to death in his apiary, beekeeper Story Fischer must sort through a swarm of suspects, including her ex-husband.

Winner, 2014 Distinguished Scholarship Award presented by the Animals & Society section of the American Sociological Association Bees are essential for human survival—one-third of all food on American dining tables depends on the labor of bees. Beyond pollination, the very idea of the bee is ubiquitous in our culture: we can feel buzzed; we can create buzz; we have worker bees, drones, and Queen bees; we establish collectives and even have communities that share a hive-mind. In Buzz, authors Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut convincingly argue that the power of bees goes beyond the food cycle, bees are our mascots, our models, and, unlike any other insect, are both feared and revered. In this fascinating account, Moore and Kosut travel into the land of urban beekeeping in New York City, where raising bees has become all the rage. We follow them as they climb up on rooftops, attend beekeeping workshops and honey festivals, and even put on full-body beekeeping suits and open up the hives. In the process, we meet a passionate, dedicated, and eclectic group of urban beekeepers who tend to their brood with an emotional and ecological connection that many find restorative and empowering. Kosut and Moore also interview professional beekeepers and many others who tend to their bees for their all-important production of a food staple: honey. The artisanal food shops that are so popular in Brooklyn are a perfect place to sell not just honey, but all manner of goods: soaps, candles, beeswax, beauty products, and even bee pollen. Buzz also examines media representations of bees, such as children’s books, films, and consumer culture, bringing to light the reciprocal way in which the bee and our idea of the bee inform one another. Partly an ethnographic investigation and partly a meditation on the very nature of human/insect relations, Moore and Kosut argue that how we define, visualize, and interact with bees clearly reflects our changing social and ecological landscape, pointing to how we conceive of and create culture, and how, in essence, we create ourselves.

Loaded with five fuzzy and busy bees and a cast of farm animals, Buzz-Buzz, Busy Bees is a colourful and charming book that introduces youngsters to farm animals.

Buzz! Quack! Lift the flap to find the animals that are making all the noise! With humorous illustrations by Caldecott honoree Rachel Isadora. “After the buzz comes the . . . “ Lift the flap to find the bee! “After the quack comes the . . . “ Lift the flap to find the duck! Lift the four-inch, heavy cardstock flaps to reveal boldly colored animals in this charming gift book. A group of adorable and diverse kids follow the hoot-hoot through the woods to find an owl under a bright moon. Hearing oink-oink, a little boy finds a messy piglet hiding behind a veggie trough. A pair of friends find a panda climbing a vibrant bamboo grove, saying ar-ar-ar. An interactive guessing game in a large format picture book with 10 fun flaps. Toddlers will delight in the funny sounds and finding animals, familiar and unusual, while learning pre-reading skills at the same time. Caldecott honor winning co-author and illustrator Rachel Isadora and innovative co-author Robie Rogge, who launched the groundbreaking bestseller Fun with Hieroglyphs, have come together to create a gift book that is perfect for baby showers, birthdays, and holidays.

This simple retelling of the new CGI-animated feature film from DreamWorks, in theaters on November 2, is ideal for young readers who are too old for beginning readers but not quite ready for the longer junior novel.