Lesley Goodman (completed and edited by Richard Cooter and Pamela Munn)
International Bee Research Association, Cardiff, UK
2003; 220 pages
ISBN (soft) 0-960-98243-2
$47.20 (soft, + shipping)

The most authoritative book on honey bee anatomy is the classic text by Snodgrass, first published in 1925.  Only a handful of other honey bee anatomy texts exist and they are all outdated, with the exception of Erickson et al. (1986), which covers external honey bee morphology exclusively with scanning electron micrographs.  The other texts include Cowen (1890), Herrod-Hempsall (1943), von Frisch (1954), and Dade (1962).  Things we often take for granted nowadays, such as extensive color plates and scanning and transmission electron micrographs, simply were not available for those authors.  This, coupled with the tremendous amount of research accomplished since 1925, means that a new treatise on the anatomy of the honey bee is sorely needed.

Enter Form and Function in the Honey Bee by Leslie Goodman.  This beautiful book, published by the International Bee Research Association, was finished by Richard Cooter and Pamela Munn after Goodman passed away due to lung cancer in 1998.  The book sets itself apart from others with its large format (9 1/2” x 13 3/8”), allowing for a more impressive use of illustrations than what is typically found in books with smaller footprints.  Graphics greatly enhance explanations of morphology, and this book certainly has a high graphics-to-text ratio:  within its 212 pages, there are more than 340 graphics, including diagrams, paintings, and photographs.  Of course, fancy graphics do not alone make a good book:  it also must incorporate up-to-date research findings.  I was pleased to see that the book accomplished this quite well.  For example, in the section “How do insects stay up in the air?” the book includes the then-newest findings by Dickinson et al (1999), listing delayed stall, rotational lift, and wake capture as three important mechanisms for generating lift in small insects.

The nine chapters in this book are really twelve chapters, because the three chapters on feeding were treated as sub-chapters to make the book consistent on treating each organ system as one chapter. The chapters cover the major aspects of bee anatomy: the antennae (1), the compound eyes (2) and ocelli (3), gravity sensors (4), the mouthparts (5.1) and their receptors (5.2), pollen collecting tools (5.3), the respiratory system (6), wing morphology and flight control (7), glandular structures and the major pheromones (8), and lastly, the stinger apparatus and its venom and alarm pheromones (9).  You will notice that there is a nice mix of anatomy (form) with other aspects of biology, mostly physiology (function), but also behavior (“How far do bees fly?”) and even evolution (“How did wings evolve?” and “Why does the bee have so many different components in its alarm pheromone?”).  However, there are several obvious anatomical omissions:  the brain, the digestive system, the circulatory system and the reproductive systems.  Perhaps another book (“Honey Bee Physiology”) is needed to completely update and replace Snodgrass’ 1925 classic.  There is a keyword index, but I also wished that there was an index to the authors.

The author’s original intention was to produce a book that is readable and affordable for both scientists and the general public.  This lofty goal unquestionably has been reached.  The book is accessible to non-scientists and beekeepers, yet has enough depth for graduate students.  The illustrations by Michael Roberts are stunning in their beauty as well as their accuracy.  The book lists 241 references (up until 2001) if the readers want to study further.  I found no errors or typos in the book, in contrast to a few other insect books that I recently read.  I expect that many people will use Form and Function in the Honey Bee as a reference and as a textbook for many years to come.

References

Cowan, T.W. 1890.  The Honey Bee: Its Natural History, Anatomy, and Physiology. Houlston & Sons, London.

Dade, H.A.  1962.Anatomy and dissection of the honeybee. Reprinted in 1977. International Bee Research Association, UK.

Dickson, M.H., F. Lehmann, S.P. Sane. 1999.Wing rotation and the aerodynamic basis of insect flight. Science 284: 1954-1960.

Erickson, E.H., Jr., S.D. Carson, M.B. Garment. 1986.A scanning electron microscope atlas of the honey bee. Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa.

Herrod-Hempsall, W. 1943.The anatomy, physiology and natural history of the honey. The British Bee Journal, UK.

Snodgrass, R.E. 1925.  Anatomy and physiology of the honeybee. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., NY and London.

Von Frisch, K. 1954.The dancing bees: an account of the life and senses of the honey bee. Translated by Dora Ilse. Methuen and Co. Ltd, London.

Zachary Huang
Department of Entomology
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, 48824
E-mail: bees@msu.edu
American Entomologist
Vol. 55, No.4, Winter 2009