title: Bees (First Discovery)
author: Gallimard Jeunesse
description: In the First Discovery series, a small book that provides readers with intimate glimpses of slightly larger-than-life, realistically drawn insects. An abbreviated text functions almost as captions for the pictures, describing behaviors: making wax, doing a ``bee dance.'' Engaging facts about beekeeping and other nest-building insects (hornets, wasps) are included, as are a few pages devoted to termites (neither their relationship to bees nor the reason for their inclusion in the book is ever made clear). Transparent pages allow readers to buzz through a bee's life: peek behind flowers, peer inside a hive, and follow drones in their pursuit of the queen. These overlays work best at conveying a sense of motion, e.g., a swarming bee colony seems to move literally from hive to tree branch to new home. A useful introduction. (Picture book/nonfiction. 3-7) -- <I>Copyright &copy;1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</I>
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  ![Cover: Sins of the Bees, by Annie Lampman](../images/9781643135342.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Sins of the Bees by Annie Lampman, Pegasus Crime](../images/title.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _For my family of men—my tribe, my genus, my species: Stephen, Phinehas,
  Benjamin, Isaiah_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  Apis mellifera _: The common honeybee. Order: Hymenoptera (Hymen is the Greek
  god of marriage, hence the union of front and hind wings); Suborder: Apocrita
  (ants, bees, and wasps); Superfamily: Apoidea; Family: Apidae (bees); Tribe:
  Apini; Genus:_ Apis _; Species:_ mellifera _(honey-bearing)_
  
  
  —The Beekeeper’s Handbook
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  Ode to the Beekeeper
  
  
  who has taken off her veil
  
  
  and gloves and whispers to the bees
  
  
  in their own language, inspecting the comb-thick
  
  
  frames, blowing just so when one or the other alights
  
  
  on her, if she doesn’t study it first—the veins
  
  
  feeding the wings, the deep ochre
  
  
  shimmy, the singing—just like in the dreams
  
  
  that brought her here in the first place: