Get the buzz on bees with up-close and personal, stunning photographs of more than a hundred species. If a bee flies near you or if it lands on your arm, you might want to run away as fast as you can. Or maybe you freeze and hope the bee moves on quickly. No matter your strategy, one thing is certain: you're probably not appreciating the bee's fascinating beauty. But you're missing out! Bees are stunning to observe up close. Aliens or robots might come to mind when you gaze into a blue face with two giant, shiny black eyes. (That's right, bees can be blue, green, and red, too). In Bees, the photography of Sam Droege and the USGS presents more than 100 of the most eye-catching varieties of bees found throughout the world. While bee nerds may appreciate the common honey bee or the rare Andrena violae, others can simply enjoy the wide selection of different body shapes, head configurations, unique antennae, and the stories that accompany them.
Sam Droege is a wildlife biologist at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, part of the US Geological Survey. He is widely published in journals and has been the editor of numerous government publications on birds and insects. His work cataloging and photographing bees has been featured by NPR, The Weather Channel, and the National Wildlife Federation, as well as in numerous publications including Wired, the Wall Street Journal, and Popular Science.