Book Club: A Sting in the Tale

[vexed87]

Sorry about the delay in uploading this. I’ll be honest, writing the review felt a bit like hard work so I kept putting it off

A Sting in the Tale: My Adventures with Bumblebees
by Dave Goulson



Synopsis:
Dave Goulson has always been obsessed with wildlife, from his childhood menagerie of exotic pets and dabbling in experimental taxidermy to his groundbreaking research into the mysterious ways of the bumblebee and his mission to protect our rarest bees.
Once commonly found in the marshes of Kent, the short-haired bumblebee now only exists in the wilds of New Zealand, the descendants of a few queen bees shipped over in the nineteenth century. Dave Goulson’s passionate drive to reintroduce it to its native land is one of the highlights of a book that includes exclusive research into these curious creatures, history’s relationship with the bumblebee and advice on how to protect it for all time.
One of the UK’s most respected conservationists and the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Goulson combines Gerald Durrell-esque tales of a child’s growing passion for nature with a deep insight into the crucial importance of the bumblebee. He details the minutiae of life in their nests, sharing fascinating research into the effects intensive farming has had on our bee populations and on the potential dangers if we are to continue down this path.

Review
‘A Sting in the Tale’ is first a foremost a book about bumblebee ecology and one researcher’s lifetime work, stemming from a strange childhood obsession with animals from an early age. I was initially drawn to the book because I am a Biology graduate myself and share a similar obsession with living things and all things ecology. Initially I was a bit worried about my choice, perhaps it was a bit too niche for the ERE forum, however having recently read some of the excellent books on ecology referenced in Jacob’s ERE book, I felt it fitted quite well in the end.

I personally knew very little about bumblebees prior to reading the book, yet when I finally put the book down, I left feeling like the author imparted many years of wisdom onto me, however niche the topic .

While I had previously understood that all creatures are very important within their own ecosystems, I had no idea how much our own fates are intertwined with the humble bumblebee. The author did a great job of sharing his passion and enthusiasm for such an unassuming creature, and while not technically a layman myself, the book seemed to be well written and accessible to non-biology types with lots of helpful metaphors and humbling explanations of research techniques and bee behaviours.

It seems we owe a great deal to these tireless insects as they go about pollinating some of the very crops that we rely on to feed ourselves here in the UK. Without them, whole crops could fail to fruit through lack of fertilisations. For this reason, bumblebees were exported to New Zealand and elsewhere after colonising farmers realised their crops were not being pollinated, well of course the imported crops rely on the insects, they have a symbiotic relationship with the humble bumblebee, duh!

The author explains the importance of preventing ecosystem collapse and many of the reasons why the future of these insects is in danger. While these are problems for the UK, undoubtedly this is being repeated many times over in many ecosystems throughout the world. Many of the bumblebee species native to the UK are now extinct, perhaps due to combinations of pesticides, changing landscapes and farming practices. It seems that the remaining species are in serious danger of going the same way. It is clear that biodiversity is taking a serious hammering. What will be our fate if these important creatures disappear forever? How will we feed ourselves if our crops are not effectively pollinated? Clearly there’s real danger of entire ecosystems collapsing so a good section of the book is dedicated to learning more about this in a bid to prevent the worst from happening.

I for one am glad there are people out there pondering these problems and working to keep these important ecosystems functioning! But this isn't a problem for someone else to solve. We all need to do our bit...

Discussion:

1. Having read the book, I realise that we all have a responsibility to ensure that our local ecosystems are in good health and even what seems like a simple thing to do such as planting some flowers outside could make a big difference to local bees. What are you plans if any to help the bumblebee (and other wildlife) at home?

2. Has the book changed your perspective on ecology?

3. I often lie awake at night worrying about the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems and my role in it all. How do you sleep at night?

4. We know our actions, whether it’s accidental introduction of foreign species to new lands, or 'our' deliberate attempts at monoculture landscaping to improve our surroundings are in reality destroying the very things that make the natural world a beautiful and worthwhile place to be. Do you appreciate the natural world around you enough? Do you have any plans to get out and see that wildlife with your newfound understanding about these insects?

5. Have you ever been stung? Ouch!

[Dragline]

Definitely a story about someone who is totally dedicated to something. Trying to put myself in his shoes, I’d have to say I would have been more like a lot of his graduate students, who discovered along the way that they just weren’t into the subject matter the way the author is.

“Disillusioned by the lack of success, Joe now decided that bumblebee research was not for him and announced that he was going to retrain as a teacher. I couldn’t really blame him – when a project isn’t going as planned it can be enormously frustrating. In any case an academic career is uncertain and poorly paid, and there aren’t anywhere near enough jobs for most PhD students to be able to stay in research once they finish.”

Goulson, Dave (2014-04-29). A Sting in the Tale: My Adventures with Bumblebees (Kindle Locations 1593-1596). Picador. Kindle Edition.

This re-emphasized for me that the author’s life is an exception – he is one of those few people who can follow a passion as a career and make it work. I would have found the whole thing terribly tedious, except for eating all the pot pies on his travels.

I honestly found the discussions and descriptions of the people and places more interesting than most of the discussions of the bees themselves, particularly the author’s childhood stories, which were very entertaining and reminded me of all manner of failed chemical and engineering experiments that I attempted when I was young. But I also liked the history of the bees and descriptions of their societies, which I really didn’t know much about. I found myself consulting maps on the side to see the locations he was discussing.

I was very happy for the author that his foundation came to fruition.

Questions:

1. Having read the book, I realise that we all have a responsibility to ensure that our local ecosystems are in good health and even what seems like a simple thing to do such as planting some flowers outside could make a big difference to local bees. What are you plans if any to help the bumblebee (and other wildlife) at home?

Well, we don’t have any bumble bees around the home. Not much yard and only a few flowers that don’t bloom much. There is a surprising amount of wildlife nearby, though – although we live in basic suburbia, the nearby woods have deer and foxes and even coyote’s occasionally, in addition to possums, chipmunks and rabbits. I think taking care of that involves mainly not polluting and staying out of the way. But the deer will have to be culled at some point, because there are too many and they don’t have any natural predators.

Note that I have a very small yard by design – I had to mow a big one growing up and decided it wasn’t something I really wanted. I do marvel at the garden pictures that I see others posting on that particular thread. It is on my “bucket list”, but I have not acted on it.

2. Has the book changed your perspective on ecology?

No, but I’ve been generally aware of these issues, especially with respect to the dying bee colonies in the US. I found the bumble bee/tomato cultivation business aspect to be fascinating – I did not know anything about that.

3. I often lie awake at night worrying about the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems and my role in it all. How do you sleep at night?

No, I don’t have a lot of control over that personally, or a lot less than other things. I try not to be wasteful. And after reading “1491” (about pre-Columbian societies in the Americas) right after this book, it seems than humans have been remaking their environment as long as they have been organized and capable of doing so. The main difference now is that there are a lot more of us and our technology allows it to happen more quickly. Importing/exporting to non-native environments seems to have been particularly damaging.

Other things, mostly called children, make me worry a bit more.

4. We know our actions, whether it’s accidental introduction of foreign species to new lands, or 'our' deliberate attempts at monoculture landscaping to improve our surroundings are in reality destroying the very things that make the natural world a beautiful and worthwhile place to be. Do you appreciate the natural world around you enough? Do you have any plans to get out and see that wildlife with your newfound understanding about these insects?

I think so, although I prefer to get out to wilder areas to really commune with nature. I would still tend to avoid insects, as most of the ones that find me interesting want to suck my blood. I remember finding and playing with a variety of beetles, centipedes, sow bugs, worms and other things found under rocks as a child. But I am not inspired to do that again.

5. Have you ever been stung? Ouch!

Yes, many times, but not recently, Never by a bumble bee – they are really quite unlikely to bother with you unless you have been rolling in nectar. On the other hand, where I grew up more common bees and wasps would nest in holes in the ground, and if you accidentally stepped on one, you were in for an angry swarming.

[jennypenny]

I really liked this book. Goulson is an entertaining writer and his enthusiasm for the subject matter is infectious. It was fun to read something lighthearted and informative after all of the overdone and overstuffed fiction I've been editing of late (KU 2.0 has really lowered the quality of self-pub work. Sorry, I digress.) Random thoughts ...


-- "They have innate preferences for blues and yellows, so will tend to visit flowers of these colours first."
So do people. They are common colors used in advertising and product development. We've been 'trained' to make other associations wrt color (like green = healthy/natural), but blue and yellow are our natural preferences. Curious.


-- It might just be my puerile sense of humor, but I found chapter 12 very entertaining. I always find the mating habits of other creatures interesting in how they differ, and how they are the same, as humans.

"In hilltopping species [not bumblebees], females that wish to find a mate simply head uphill, confident that when they get to the top there will be plenty of amorous suitors awaiting them. This also provides them with an opportunity to be choosy; they can quickly survey and compare a large number of males, and offer themselves to whichever one of them has the most desirable characteristics. Or, if they are in a hurry, they might simply mate with the male right at the top, on the assumption that he must be the fittest and strongest since he has managed to acquire and hang on to the best spot. ... In bumblebees, the males do not appear to be territorial when gathered on hilltops. They simply hang around, often in amicable groups, drinking nectar when it is available, and presumably attempting to mate with females whenever they appear. The parallels with human behaviour are irresistible, particularly since male bees do little or no work in the nest, leaving all of that to the females. Hilltops seemingly represent the bumblebee equivalent of a nightclub or singles bar, somewhere to check out and chat up members of the opposite sex."

"For reasons we do not yet understand, bumblebee nests seem to produce many more males than new queens; on average about seven males for every queen. Since queens generally mate only once in their entire lives, this means that six out of seven males will never manage to mate. As it is their sole function in life, I find this rather sad."

"Although I have never observed successful courtship and copulation in the field, bees do mate readily enough in the lab. I recently played host to a Bangladeshi researcher named Ruhul Amin who was particularly interested in courtship and mating in bumblebees, and he spent many happy hours in a windowless room in the basement at Stirling watching buff-tailed bumblebees mate. He found that older males took longer to mate than young ones, but that they had better endurance, mating for longer. He offered some lucky males a chance to mate with a second virgin immediately after they had finished with the first, and found once again that older males took longer to perform in these circumstances, although when they eventually got going they mated for longer. He also found that bigger males mated more swiftly but had less endurance."


-- I loved the stories about his childhood. I didn't have a fondness for bees as a child, but I was always collecting and analyzing something. More than once, I fried some poor creature because I used a magnifying glass to get a better look with no regard for the angle of the sun, and set it ablaze. As I read Goulson's stories, I kept thinking how he wouldn't be allowed to live a childhood like that today (at least not in the US). His keen interest (and mishaps) would be seen as suspicious, and not the healthy curiosity of an intelligent boy.

"My garter snakes spent more time out of their tank than in it. In desperation I tried using sticky tape to hold the lid down, with unfortunate consequences. One of the snakes still managed to push up the lid, but then became stuck to the tape and in its attempts to disentangle itself became hopelessly wrapped up in a ball of tape; it took me hours to tease it apart. I resigned myself to regular hunts for escapees, and it is quite possible that a garter snake is, to this day, living somewhere under the floorboards of that house."

"My charges had a worryingly high mortality rate. One Sunday morning, my mother was in the kitchen rustling up one of her legendary pies ... I must have been at a loose end and getting in her way, so she pointed out that the fish tank in my bedroom was in dire need of a clean – the glass had become green with algae, so that the fish were barely visible. A little while later I was dutifully scrubbing the glass inside the tank, my arm immersed in the warm water, when my mother called up, ‘Dave … What’s burning? You aren’t lighting matches again are you?’ Before starting to scrub, I had lifted out the electric heater, encased in its glass waterproof tube, and laid it on a wooden cupboard to one side. It hadn’t occurred to me to unplug it, and not being in water it had become hot and was burning into the top of the cupboard. (I never fathomed how my mother was able to smell burning so quickly and from such a long way away.) Without thinking, I lifted the heater by its cable and tossed it into the tank. Of course, very hot glass and cool water are not an ideal combination, and the heater tube shattered with a bang, exposing the electrical element to the water and electrocuting all of my fish. They quivered and spasmed in the water (thankfully I didn’t shove my hand in the tank to pull the heater back out), and by the time I had pulled the plug from the socket they were all very much dead."

After more stories about the untimely demise of several types of pets, Goulson concludes "I could go on. I could mention the awful fate of my axolotl, or my botched attempt to perform corrective surgery on a badly injured rook. Suffice it to say that being one of my pets was a dangerous business."


--The way they designed experiments and ways to track the bees was very clever at times. Another funny bit on that subject ... "We could individually identify every bee since we had carefully glued a numbered plastic disc to the thorax of each. This is an enormously fiddly job. The glue takes a minute or two to set, during which time the bee tries to dislodge the disc by hooking a foreleg over its back. As often as not it succeeds, and the process has to be repeated. Not infrequently the bee pushes the sticky disc forwards on to its head, effectively covering its eyes, and then blunders around bumping into things. I once tried using quick-drying superglue instead, but after ending up with a bee with its foot stuck to its back I quickly gave up."


I'll move on to the questions ...

1. Having read the book, I realise that we all have a responsibility to ensure that our local ecosystems are in good health and even what seems like a simple thing to do such as planting some flowers outside could make a big difference to local bees. What are you plans if any to help the bumblebee (and other wildlife) at home?
We've made an effort in our yard to attract bees and butterflies. I took a course on it last year. I was pleased to see a huge increase in our backyard this year. Enough so that others noticed. We are going to add more next spring. It's really rather simple to do.


2. Has the book changed your perspective on ecology?
No, but only because I'm into gardening. It's hard to read any permaculture literature without developing an interest in ecology.


3. I often lie awake at night worrying about the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems and my role in it all. How do you sleep at night?
It does keep me up at night. I have a very strong faith, but if there is anything that makes me question it, it our [human's] treatment of the planet. How could God allow it? I think the willful ignorance of Christians to be good stewards of the environment is shameful.


4. We know our actions, whether it’s accidental introduction of foreign species to new lands, or 'our' deliberate attempts at monoculture landscaping to improve our surroundings are in reality destroying the very things that make the natural world a beautiful and worthwhile place to be. Do you appreciate the natural world around you enough? Do you have any plans to get out and see that wildlife with your newfound understanding about these insects?
I'm definitely going to try and identify the bees next year. I already catalog the birds that visit our yard (our town is participating in an audubon society study). I'd love to visit more exotic locals to see different wildlife, but I worry about the environmental impact of traveling.


5. Have you ever been stung? Ouch!
Yup. It doesn't bother me too much, although I don't think I'd have the nerve for beekeeping.

Funny side note -- A friend of ours keeps bees and sells the honey. His farmers market transitioned into what he describes as an organic yuppie market, so he changed the label on his honey to "Free Range Honey" and doubled the price. He sells out LOL.

[EMJ]

Anyone who is interested in bees should check out Sam Droege's work: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/featu ... fsShs4tXoE

[cmonkey]

Anyone who is interested in bees should check out Sam Droege's work: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/featu ... fsShs4tXoE

Those are phenomenal. In case you don't see the link, here is his flickr account. Thousands of photos.

This book looks fascinating, I think I will try to get it through our library. I haven't been stung by a bee (that I can remember) but I have been stung by a bald-faced hornet.

[Sere]

I've just found this book at my library and look forward to reading it. Thanks for the pick!

[Sere]

Joining the party very late, but seeing as I had to return the book to the library today, I figure it's as good a time as any...!

I began reading this book with much interest, given that Chapter 1 started with the story of bumble bees in New Zealand, and it was in New Zealand that I first encountered a bumble bee myself.
I sympathise with the author’s desire to (and eventual) purchase a chateau in France. Sounds like a dream!

Thanks for sharing those amazing photos, @EMJ. Truly incredible.

1. Having read the book, I realise that we all have a responsibility to ensure that our local ecosystems are in good health and even what seems like a simple thing to do such as planting some flowers outside could make a big difference to local bees. What are you plans if any to help the bumblebee (and other wildlife) at home?
I have some flower seeds I’ll plant when the season is right.
I was also interested by the book’s take on selective breeding and planting of ‘decorative’ plants. It had never occurred to me that some types of flowers (like the double petaled varieties) might be more difficult for bees to access.

2. Has the book changed your perspective on ecology?
Not greatly – I was aware of many of the broad themes of the book. However, for me, the take away message of A Sting in the Tale was (somewhat appropriately) the need to take a micro perspective sometimes. Although I found (as I think others have too) the author’s narrow concentration on bees a little much at times (for a non-bee-specialist), the fact that 200 odd pages could be filled with bumble bee-related minutiae – much of it fascinating detail – shows what a wealth of interesting information exists yet to be discovered or widely known about when you multiply the undoubtedly larger body of knowledge that exists by the vast number of different animals, past, present and future. Also, as I mentioned in 1. above, I think taking such a specialist view can be really helpful in understanding how our actions can positively or negatively impact the lives of the animals we share the ecosystems with. It’s easy to say “plant more trees” or “plant more flowers” without fully understanding the micro level needs of and threats to each species. I’ve been involved in some tree planting activity before, but relied on the specialists involved that the type of trees we were planting were appropriate for where we were planting them.

3. I often lie awake at night worrying about the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems and my role in it all. How do you sleep at night?
Lol. Poorly!

4. We know our actions, whether it’s accidental introduction of foreign species to new lands, or 'our' deliberate attempts at monoculture landscaping to improve our surroundings are in reality destroying the very things that make the natural world a beautiful and worthwhile place to be. Do you appreciate the natural world around you enough? Do you have any plans to get out and see that wildlife with your newfound understanding about these insects?
Living in Australia, I’ve always been very aware of the ‘native’ species of plants and animals and those that are ‘imported’, and have seen the devastating effects of many of the types of importations described by Goulson.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a garden space (although I do have a small shared area around my apartment building), but I do live in a suburb that was planned to have many public gardens within short walking distance of any block, so most days I walk through a garden, and at least a couple of times a month, I walk through the botanical garden. My workplace also has a practice of deliberately planting only trees and plants native to the region.
Whenever I travel, I like to visit at least one forest/garden/bushland/conservatory.
I’ll certainly look at the next bee I see in a new way (and ants too, after this book inspired me to read more about them also!)

5. Have you ever been stung? Ouch!
I have a hazy memory of being stung as a child.

[Ydobon]

Sounds fascinating and my local library has a copy

[vexed87]

Yeah, really enjoyed reading it. I see why Jacob never does book reviews though as that part felt too much like homework!

[Ydobon]

A self sufficient...ish Highland home is my ERE dream. Think we could build a small SIP home with a couple of very large polytunnels, solar panels and plenty of room for bees for about £20k less than the sticker price of our current house. There are some very interesting varieties of bees with relatively small ranges in the UK. Either that or retrofit an old croft.

[jennypenny]

I'm afraid we're going to see a lot of this with the zika panic ... Millions of honeybees in S.C. become collateral damage in fight against Zika