Jason Bittel writes frequently for natgeo.com;
this is his first story in the magazine. Ingo Arndt’s
book with Jürgen Tautz, Honey Bees: Mysterious
Forest Dwellers, publishes this spring.Over six months, Arndt shot more than
60,000 pictures, creating a portrait of wild
honeybees unlike anything seen before.
creates a smooth surface onto which other bees
can apply a shellac known as propolis.
“Propolis is a secretion produced by the buds of
trees in spring,” Tautz says. “It’s very sticky, but
bees collect it because it is antifungal and anti-
bacterial. It’s part of the pharmacy of the forest.”
Other moments were captured for the first
time, such as when Arndt photographed a
honey bee opening a pheromone-emitting gland
in midflight.
“Nobody has ever shown that before,” Seeley
says. He hopes these intimate photos will open
people’s eyes to the mostly hidden beauty of
wild bees.
“We’re so used to seeing bees or thinking of
bees living in a square white box,” Seeley says.
“And that’s how they live for beekeepers. But
it’s not how they lived for millions of years on
their own.” jWhen the temperatures outside dipped, thehoneybees grabbed hold of each other’s legs
to form a living quilt along the surface of the
combs. Tautz likens the structure to a sleeping
bag, but one in which the fabric’s weave—made
of interlocked bees—can be loosened or tight-
ened to adjust the temperature.
IN SOME CASES, Arndt and Tautz were able to
explain behaviors that beekeepers have long
puzzled over. One mystery was why the insects
would gnaw at the wood of their boxes without
any appreciable effect. Inside the tree, they
found, the behavior makes more sense.
“They scratch all the loose particles frominside the surface of the hollow,” Tautz says.
Not only might this behavior remove potentialpathogens, such as fungal buildups, but it also
Honeybees often lock legs with each other
when working in their nest. The living chains are
especially important while building combs because
the temperature must be at least 95 degrees
Fahrenheit to keep the beeswax soft and workable.
THE SECRETS OF BEES 83