Hosler, Jay – The Way of the Hive

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The Way of the Hive

Like it says on the cover, this was previously published as Clan Apis a whole lot of years ago. And a whole lot of years before THAT it was published as five comics. So is it cheating if I review something twice? Eh, sort of, so please send any formal complaints to my manager, who is me, so they can deal with them appropriately, which is to either ignore them or laugh if they’re well written. Also the original graphic novel was black and white and this is in full, glorious color, which was always the best way to read it. So what’s this book about? Well, you should know that this is an “all ages” book, that Jay is a biology professor, and that he is a pioneer of using comics to impart scientific information to his students. You’re going to learn a lot here, is what I’m trying to say, and that’s almost certainly true even if you think you know everything there is to know about honey bees. There’s also a fairly engaging narrative going on, so even if you’re trying your very best not to learn anything new, you’ll still be invested enough in it to keep going. Also, you’re going to learn plenty of new things, so just accept that now. This is the story of Nyuki, and we’re taken through her larval stage, her process in becoming a bee, an understanding of the various jobs of the different types of bees, and the dangers that are present in the outside world. We also see how different hives interact with each other, how queens keep control, how they keep it down to only one queen at a time and what happens when an insect or animal dies in the hive. I am exceedingly tempted to throw a whole lot of bee facts at you right now, but I’ll limit myself to one: did you have any idea that bees could sting other insects without their stingers being pulled out? I did not, but found it fascinating. And that they kill invader bees by swarming them and flapping their wings so fast that they basically cook the rival bee? OK, that was two facts. Bees have an exceedingly short life span (less than two months), so Nyuki was never going to fly off into the sunset at the end of the book, but it does a fantastic job of showing the importance of all bees working as a unit and how all of their actions are designed to keep the hive going. There’s also an appendix in the back filled with even more facts and Jay walking the reader through his creative process, including how he managed to show emotions while still getting around the whole “bees have no facial expressions” thing. It’s an engaging, informative book, and forgive the incredible tackiness of this, but I’m going to quote the final line from my original review now: Fun for all ages, in a way that few things are. $12.99