Attraverso foto spettacolari e un testo di facile comprensione Il ronzio delle api racconta la storia di questo insetto partendo da una prospettiva diversa.

Jurgen Tautz, attraverso le scoperte piu recenti, molto delle quali frutto del suo gruppo di lavoro, ci offre la possibilita di venire a contatto con lo straordinario mondo delle api.

L intera gamma delle sorprendenti attivita che le api sono in grado di svolgere trova in questo testo una affascinante rappresentazione.

Pregevoli fotografie, mai viste prima, ritraggono le api impegnate nei compiti piu diversi: pulizia delle cellette, cura della prole, accudimento della regina, visite ai fiori, raccolta del nettare, produzione del miele, costruzione dei favi, protezione dell alveare, termoregolazione, ecc.

Il libro contiene anche immagini di api che si accoppiano, sciamano, combattono, dormono e soprattutto comunicano mediante suoni, profumi e danze.

Jürgen Tautz, renowned German bee researcher, explains how bees communicate. Exciting and surprising new insights on communication between bees. During the history of bee research, scientists have peered deep into the inner life of bee colonies and learned much about the behaviour of these insects. Above all, the bee waggle dance has become a famous and extensively discussed phenomenon. Nevertheless, recent insights reveal that while bees are social insects inside the hive they also communicate with one another outside the hive. In this book, Jürgen Tautz, renowned German bee researcher, provides an entertaining, fresh and enlightened account for lay and professional readers, not only about the fascinating dance language but also about additional remarkable phenomena concerning information exchange between bees. From the author of the bestseller “The Buzz about Bees�. “Communication between Honeybees� assembles, for the first time, a complete overview of how bees understand one another. Although communication biology research on bees has so far concentrated largely on events within the hive, this book directs attention as well, to how bees communicate in the field outside the hive. The reader learns which steps new bee recruits take to reach the feeder a dancing forager has advertised. The book analyses the status of work on the bee dance published over the last 100 years and orders the essential findings as building blocks into a coherent new concept of how bees find their target. In addition, the historical survey of research on the “Bee Language� explains how several contradictory and incomplete hypotheses can still survive. A fresh point of view on one of the most remarkable behavioural performances in the animal kingdom. Observation from a different viewpoint leads to previously unknown insights. Such new perspectives clearly reveal both how large the gaps in our knowledge still are in relation to the language of bees and which direction research must take to complete the picture of one of the most impressive behavioural accomplishments in animals. Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz is an expert on bees, sociobiologist, animal behaviourist and emeritus professor at the Biozentrum, University of Würzburg. He is a bestseller author and recipient of many awards of excellence for his successful communication of science to a wide public.

Tis book, already translated into ten languages, may at frst sight appear to be just about honeybees and their biology. It c- tains, however, a number of deeper messages related to some of the most basic and important principles of modern biology. Te bees are merely the actors that take us into the realm of phys- ology, genetics, reproduction, biophysics and learning, and that introduce us to the principles of natural selection underlying the evolution of simple to complex life forms. Te book destroys the cute notion of bees as anthropomorphic icons of busy self-sacr -i fcing individuals and presents us with the reality of the colony as an integrated and independent being—a “superorganism�—with its own, almost eerie, emergent group intelligence. We are s- prised to learn that no single bee, from queen through drone to sterile worker, has the oversight or control over the colony. - stead, through a network of integrated control systems and fee- backs, and communication between individuals, the colony - rives at consensus decisions from the bottom up through a type of “swarm intelligence�. Indeed, there are remarkable parallels between the functional organization of a swarming honeybee colony and vertebrate brains.

Im Laufe der Evolution haben die Insekten eine schier unglaubliche Formenvielfalt und funktionelle Raffinesse entwickelt. Das Design ihres Außenskeletts ist so phantasievoll und ungewöhnlich, oft auch bizarr, dass man nur staunen kann. Dass Insekten für jedes noch so spezielle Problem Konstruktionslösungen finden können, macht sie überaus erfolgreich. Sie wurden so zu entscheidenden Bindegliedern in den komplexen Netzwerken der Natur. Beindruckende Makroaufnahmen und informative rasterelektronenoptische Bilder geben einen Einblick in Formenreichtum, Schönheit und Funktion der Sechsbeiner. Spannende Texte begleiten die Bilder und erklären u.a. wie der Gelbrandkäfer Wirbeltierhormone als K.O.-Tropfen einsetzt, wenn er von Fischen angegriffen wird, der Kiefernprachtkäfer weit entfernte Waldbrände lokalisiert, der Bombardierkäfer mit seinem Schussapparat gepulste Explosionen abgibt oder die Bläulingsraupe Ameisen bezirzt. In den Ökosystemen unseres Planeten spielen die Insekten eine entscheidende Rolle. Die menschengemachte Umweltzerstörung greift empfindlich in diese Kreisläufe ein. Das gefährdet das Überleben der Insekten, mit dramatischen Auswirkungen auch für uns Menschen.