Book Review: A Sting in the Tale
A Sting in the Tale: My Adventures with Bumble Bees by Dave Goulson
This book is all about one man's quest to save the bumblebee.
Dave Goulson (a biology professor and founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust) entertainingly reveals his broad expert knowledge and research into the relativity little-known lives of bumblebees. He outlines through the book the real threats facing bumblebees and his mission to protect some of the rarest bumblebees - such as the short-haired bumblebee, now extinct in the UK, but still residing in New Zealand (descendants from bees brought to New Zealand in the 1870’s).
A Sting in the Tale clearly highlights the reality that most of the vital pollination and other work of insects is unseen and as Goulson reinforces the point that humans will only survive if insects also endure. This book outlines the difficult plight of the bumblebee (and the impact of mans impact on the natural environmental to bees and insects generally) which in large part due to intensive industrial style farming. Goulson uncovers how bumblebees have now become part of the global supply chain with commercial breeding of bumblebees only beginning as recently as 1985 and today growers of raspberries, cucumbers, aubergines and peppers now importing foreign-reared nests to improve their yields. Insects as it turns out are cheaper labour than humans and more efficient. Goulson observes that bumblebees possess "powers of perception and learning that often put us mammals to shame".
When we think of bees often as a single insect and don’t realise that there are in fact 20,000 bee species. Goulson is not really a fan of honeybees – whom he refers to as the "the anorexic cousins of bumblebees" have been domesticated for centuries and are generally drab in colour. Bumblebees, of which there are 250 species globally, are in Golson’s view the “charismatic tigers of the insect world”.
Goulson reveals his personal attachment to bumblebees over his life and reminds us that he began studying bees “not because they are important pollinators but because they are fascinating, because they behave in interesting and mysterious ways, and because they are rather loveable”.
A Sting in the Tale uncovers a number of interesting facts and stories about Bumblebees. For example, bumblebees have a body temperature around 35C, almost as warm as a human body. They flap their wings 200 times per second and a bumblebee with a full stomach is only 40 minutes from starvation, so they have to eat almost constantly to keep warm. Golson’s experiments revealed bees regularly travelled 3km to obtain pollen - the equivalent to a human circumnavigating the globe 10 times. Goulson also highlights how bumblebees know which flowers have been visited by other bees because of the odours left behind on their footprints and from the strength of that smell whether the flower will have had time to refill with nectar.
A Sting in the Tale is an entertaining accessible read that combines humour and real research and is no dry “science book”. Beyond being informative, it converts the reader to want to actively protect bumblebees and insects in general even if in small ways such as by adding more flower patches to the landscape to make it a little easier for bees to find food.
“Conservation is not something that should be left to others. It is easy to get depressed and despondent at the impending extinction of the polar bear or the tiger, or at the horrific progress of deforestation in the tropics. Perhaps governments or scientists or organisations such as WWF can do something to help address these situations, but as an individual it is very hard to know where to start – it all seems so remote and dauntingly complex. In contrast, conserving bumblebees is something anyone can do. A single lavender bush on a patio or in a window box will attract and feed bumblebees, even in the heart of a city”
- Dave Goulson
@ Black Teal Bay Book Rating: 8/10
