Claire Preston 2006 206 pages Soft cover (P500) This is a learned and enjoyable essay about bees. Here on Bookshelf we have in recent editions reviewed a number of books that take a cultural look at bees, and this is one of the best. Claire Preston draws upon a vast literature for her presentation. A flavour of the areas discussed can be gained from the Chapter titles: The reasons for bees, Biological bee, Kept bee, Political bee, Pious/corrupt bee, Utile bee, Aesthetic bee, Folkloric bee, Playful bee, Bee movie, and Retired bee. Even the most widely read beekeeper will find something new here: for example, did you know that Suggs, the ‘eminently sane’ lead singer of the 1980’s band, Madness – chose a beehive as the one luxury he would like to take with him, when interviewed on the BBC’s radio programme Desert Island Discs? Most pages of this beautifully presented book have excellent and interesting illustrations. Unfortunately, the text is slightly let down by mistakes concerning honeybee science, and a picture (ludicrous to any beekeeper) of a marked queen, captioned ‘the queen bee is marked by her size and the red dot on her head’. However, this is not the book to read if you want to know about bee science or beekeeping. It is a great book to read if you want to gain a wider perspective of bees’ role within our human society.