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Book Cover
E-book
Author Moore, Lisa Jean, 1967- author.

Title Buzz : urban beekeeping and the power of the bee / Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut
Published New York : New York University Press, 2013

Copies

Description 1 online resource
Series Biopolitics Series
Biopolitics Series
Contents Catching the Buzz : Introduction -- Buzzing for Bees : From Model Insect to Urban Beekeeping -- Save the Bees : Colony Collapse Disorder and the Greening of the Bee -- Being with Bees : Intimate Entanglements Between Humans and Insects -- Domestic Entanglements with Bees : Sex and Gender -- Breeding Good Citizens : All American Insects -- Busy Bees : The Deployment of Bees -- Beyond Buzz : Becoming Bee Centered
Summary Bees are essential for human survival - one-third of all food on American dining tables depends on the labor of bees. Beyond pollination, the very idea of the bee is ubiquitous in our culture: we can feel buzzed; we can create buzz; we have worker bees, drones, and Queen bees; we establish collectives and even have communities that share a hive-mind. In this book, the authors argue that the power of bees goes beyond the food cycle, bees are our mascots, our models, and, unlike any other insect, are both feared and revered. The authors travel into the land of urban beekeeping in New York City, where raising bees has become all the rage. We follow them as they climb up on rooftops, attend beekeeping workshops and honey festivals, and even put on full-body beekeeping suits and open up the hives. In the process, we meet a passionate, dedicated, and eclectic group of urban beekeepers who tend to their brood with an emotional and ecological connection that many find restorative and empowering. The authors also interview professional beekeepers and many others who tend to their bees for their all-important production of a food staple: honey. The artisanal food shops that are so popular in Brooklyn are a perfect place to sell not just honey, but all manner of goods: soaps, candles, beeswax, beauty products, and even bee pollen. The book also examines media representations of bees, such as children's books, films, and consumer culture, bringing to light the reciprocal way in which the bee and our idea of the bee inform one another. Partly an ethnographic investigation and partly a meditation on the very nature of human/insect relations, this book argues that how we define, visualize, and interact with bees clearly reflects our changing social and ecological landscape, pointing to how we conceive of and create culture, and how, in essence, we create ourselves. -- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Urban bee culture -- New York (State) -- New York
Beekeepers -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Honeybee -- New York (State) -- New York
Bee products -- New York (State) -- New York
Bee culture -- United States
Honeybee -- United States
Honeybee -- Social aspects -- United States
Honeybee -- Effect of human beings on -- United States
Human-animal relationships -- United States
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Sociology -- Urban.
NATURE -- Ecology.
TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING -- Agriculture -- General.
Bee culture
Bee products
Beekeepers
Honeybee
Human-animal relationships
Urban bee culture
New York (State) -- New York
United States
Genre/Form Biographies
Biographies.
Biographies.
Form Electronic book
Author Kosut, Mary, author
ISBN 9780814763070
0814763073