What a Bee Knows

Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees

By: Stephen Buchmann

Narrated by: Tristan Morris

For many of us, the buzzing of a bee elicits panic. But the next time you hear that low droning sound, look closer: the bee has navigated to this particular spot for a reason using a fascinating set of tools. She may be using her sensitive olfactory organs, which provide a 3D scent map of her surroundings. She may be following visual landmarks or instructions relayed by a hive-mate. She may even be tracking electrostatic traces left on flowers by other bees. What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees invites us to follow bees' mysterious paths and experience their alien world.

Although their brains are incredibly small—just one million neurons compared to humans' one hundred billion—bees have remarkable abilities to navigate, learn, communicate, and remember. In What a Bee Knows, entomologist Stephen Buchmann explores a bee's way of seeing the world and introduces the scientists who make the journey possible. We travel into the field and to the laboratories of noted bee biologists who have spent their careers digging into the questions most of us never thought to ask (for example: Do bees dream? And if so, why?). With each discovery, Buchmann's insatiable curiosity and sense of wonder is infectious.

©2023 Stephen L. Buchmann (P)2023 Tantor

Informative and Entertaining!

With lyrical language and a penchant for detail, this author took me, not just into the mind of a Bee, but also into the mind of the enthusiastic scientist who has watched Bees, with joy and wonder, since his early adolescence. i came away with a deeper understanding of what amazing creatures Bees are and with an increased respect for all the scientists who take the time to observe and understand them. This was a great listen.

More like a science textbook

its mire if a Bio textbook than a story about the amazing story of bees.

Painful Narration

Amazing book. The narration, not so much: Pompous, breathless and just weirdly dramatic, as if the director told him his performance was desperately needed to make the “boring” content sexy & interesting. Fail. The content is absolutely fascinating on its own. This narrator would probably be amazing at narrating high-brow erotica, but he nearly ruins this friendly and accessible dive into bee biology.

Hard to listen to.

As others have said, the reader seems to think it's a play by Shakespeare. It made my head hurt listening to it. He trails off at the end of every single sentence so you have to have the volume way up to hear in the car. Most of the information in the book is pretty basic stuff, and repetitive.

Very Dramatic, in a bad way

I heard the author on a podcast and immediately bought the book as well as Audible version.
I am quite disappointed in the performance. It is almost unbearable.
Passion for the subject poured from the author when he was interviewedon the podcast, why on Earth did the editors not have him narrate?

It was okay...

I read a Guardian article about this book and bought it looking for more information. The news article was basically the summary I would give of the book. In fairness, I knew some of the information already from dabbling as an apiarist in college. The data is okay but the reader dragged for me. I have a long commute and usually finish an audible book (10-14 hours long) within two weeks. This book took me a month and a half. The author reads as if the words are from a Shakespearean play and has this boom every time he pauses at the end of a sentence to start another. It was grueling for me personally to listen to it. Aside from that said about the readers style and voice, the book was good, just sort of in engaging and at times redundant.

Excelente

Es una puerta al mundo infinito y desconocido de las abejas, maravillosas y misteriosas. En el libro se enuncian una serie de experimentos e investigaciones que revelan las preguntas más comunes y difíciles de responder ¿Cómo piensa o siente una abeja?¿Cómo construyen sus colmenas? y sobretodo ¿Cuál es la importancia de su conservación? y qué podemos hacer para protegerlas.

Topic is good, author is great, narrator is not

Tristan Morris always ends sentences softly. I had to turn volume up to understand. That made it hard to listen at bed time.

Worst narration, good content

I’ll be listing this narrator as one to “never listen to” again. As other said, his style is terrible. I usually listen in a faster speed and had to listen at normal speed with the volume turned very high. I missed several sentence endings. Many times, I almost stopped listening. The content was good.