The Social Organization of the Honey Bee

How does a colony of tens of thousands of bees run itself without anyone in charge? John B. Free, the British bee scientist whose research at Rothamsted shaped much of what we know about honey bee behaviour, sets out the answer in a compact study of colony life: how queen, workers and drones divide their labour, and how the hive holds together as a single working society.

Short, clear and grounded in research, it suits beekeepers and naturalists who want to understand what is really going on behind the frames.