Honey Bee (Young Zoologist): A First Field Guide to the World's Favorite Pollinating Insect

by Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu, Astrid Weguelin (Illustrator), Neon Squid

Overview

Journey into a beehive to study honey bees in this beautiful nonfiction field guide for kids.

You might know that honey bees dance to let each other know where to find the best flowers, but there’s so much more to learn about these important insects! Turn the pages to discover the difference between the queen bee and worker bees, and how honey bees actually make honey. Filled with simple science and plenty of animal facts, this book also explains how scientists work as beekeepers to study honey bees, and how every bee in the hive works towards the same cause. It also looks at the conservation challenges these iconic animals face due to climate change and insecticides.

Written by bee expert Dr. Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu and featuring stunning illustrations by Astrid Weguelin, Honey Bee (Young Zoologist) is part of an exciting series of animal books from Neon Squid aiming to inspire the next generation of biologists and conservationists.

Also available: Humpback Whale, Giant Panda, African Elephant, Emperor Penguin, Koala

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684492824
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/03/2023
Series:	Young Zoologist
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	7.65(w) x 8.95(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	IG910L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Dr. Priyadarshini Chakrabarti Basu is an Assistant Professor in Pollinator Health and Apiculture at Mississippi State University. Priyadarshini previously worked at the Honey Bee Lab at Oregon State University. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta, India.

Astrid Weguelin is a London-based freelance illustrator, designer, and animator. She loves to explore shapes and patterns, using handmade textures and digital brushes to create her work.

Table of Contents

Hello, young zoologist! 4

Before you set started 6

Meet the honey bee 8

Home sweet home 10

Members of the colony 12

Baby bees 14

What's for dinner? 16

Busy bees 18

Dancing bees 20

Changing seasons 22

Making honey 24

Beekeeper tricks 26

Save the honey bees! 28

Glossary and Index 30

Acknowledgments 32

Editorial Reviews

"A chatty, wide-ranging introduction to the honey bee for older preschoolers and younger elementary-age students... This efficient offering stands out in its comprehensiveness, unspooling for readers a neat string of cool facts. As hardworking as the insect it celebrates." —Kirkus

Praise for the Young Zoologist series:
"What makes this series stand out is that the illustrations, bite-sized facts, and clear labels make it easy for the youngest of readers to navigate the text and absorb the information there." — Booklist

"The well-illustrated Young Zoologist series guides readers through the lives and notable features of the spotlighted animals... prepares the young zoologist (aka the reader) for their upcoming adventure in the field, laying out tools necessary for investigating the animal. The bright, semi-realistic artwork could hold these titles on its own, but the easily digestible facts regarding life cycle, behavior, and conservation make the volumes well rounded. Each work is pragmatic in addressing the challenges these creatures face while helping aspiring zoologists learn ways to protect animals and their environments." —Booklist

From the Publisher

2022-10-12
A chatty, wide-ranging introduction to the honey bee for older preschoolers and younger elementary-age students.

Chakrabarti Basu, who introduces herself as “an Indian scientist who lives and works in the United States,” neatly balances respect for her audience’s curiosity with an understanding of the need to refrain from overloading them with information. “Located at the end of the abdomen, the stinger is a sharp point used for injecting bee venom into enemies. Bees sting when they’re angry or scared,” she writes. (While there is a glossary that concludes the book, it is not comprehensive; adults sharing this book with children may need to help them with words such as venom and, a bit later, superorganism, among others.) In thematically organized spreads and with text broken into neatly digestible chunks, Chakrabarti Basu discusses different honey bee species, beekeeping tools, honey bee anatomy, nests (both wild-built and “human-made”), the different members of a honey bee colony, and more. Weguelin’s bright illustrations are simple and a bit stylized but resist anthropomorphization; they lend themselves well to the book’s occasional diagrams. Children’s shelves are abuzz with bee books, but this efficient offering stands out in its comprehensiveness, unspooling for readers a neat string of cool facts: Honey bees like “dirty water” with lots of minerals in it; they can’t see red, but they do see blue and yellow. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

As hardworking as the insect it celebrates. (index) (Informational picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews