'Can hardly be bettered.' -- Guardian 20040918 'Fascinating, careful, witty and intelligent ! Riveting ! Almost any paragraph chosen at random is entertaining' -- Prue Leith, New Statesman 20040918 'Richly informative and beautifully written' -- The Times 20040918 'Erudite and elegant ... Bee Wilson writes fluently and engagingly and she manages to present a great deal of curious information in a form as easy to swallow as a spoonful of the finest Attic honey ... The book is also exceptionally pleasing to look at and hold.' -- Tom Fort, Sunday Telegraph 20040829 'Entertaining and thoroughly worthwhile' -- Sunday Times 20040905 'Fascinating' -- Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times 20041128 'Erudite, informative, accurate and a delight to read.' -- The Times Literary Supplement 20050304 'Wilson has a fine eye for character sketches' -- The Times 20050917 'For a moment you may feel, as I did, that part of Wilson's research for this book involved turning into a bee for a few days ... Amazing.' -- Nick Lezard -- Guardian 20050917 'There are delights and surprises on virtually every page of this gem of a book' -- Sunday Telegraph 20050911 'Wilson's sprightly hymn to the honeybee ! conveys ! the marvel, complexity and ultimate unknowability that has made the beehive such a fascination -- Independent 20050911 'She manages to present a great deal of information in a form as easy to swallow as a spoonful of honey.' -- Tom Fort, Sunday Telegraph 20040829 'Buzzes with info and has the prettiest dust-jacket of the third millennium' -- Barry Humphries, Sunday Telegraph 20041128 'Endlessly fascinating' -- Mail on Sunday 20041128 'A riveting read ...this beguiling book is more a history of ideas than an actual study ...buzzing with fascinating facts' -- BBC Gardener's World Magazine 20041128 'Bee Wilson recounts all the weird and wonderful things people have believed about bees' -- History Today 20041128 'Juicy reading ...worth buying for the illustration on p. 204 alone' -- The Spectator 20041128 'Bee Wilson ...connects readers' imaginations with their salivary glands' -- New Statesman 20041128 'A brilliant examination of a natural phenomenon we all take for granted' -- Sunday Express 20041128 'Delightful' -- Economist 20041128 'Fascinating and readable. Wilson writes with flair and wit about everything from Pliny to pollination; her love of honey in all its sheer sensuousness shines through' -- Scotsman 20041128 'Can hardly be bettered ...Principally a writer on food, Wilson none the less knows a lot about keeping honeybees, and also about their biology and natural history, waxworks and candles, and the changing shape of the beehive' -- The Guardian 20041128 'Beautifully written and absorbing' -- New Statesman 20041128