Honey bees--and the qualities associated with them--have quietly influenced American values for four centuries. During every major period in the country's history, bees and beekeepers have represented order and stability in a country without a national religion, political party, or language.

Bees in America is an enlightening cultural history of bees and beekeeping in the United States. Tammy Horn, herself a beekeeper, offers a varied social and technological history from the colonial period, when the British first introduced bees to the New World, to the present, when bees are being used by the American military to detect bombs. Early European colonists introduced bees to the New World as part of an agrarian philosophy borrowed from the Greeks and Romans. Their legacy was intended to provide sustenance and a livelihood for immigrants in search of new opportunities, and the honey bee became a sign of colonization, alerting Native Americans to settlers' westward advance. Colonists imagined their own endeavors in terms of bees' hallmark traits of industry and thrift and the image of the busy and growing hive soon shaped American ideals about work, family, community, and leisure.

The image of the hive continued to be popular in the eighteenth century, symbolizing a society working together for the common good and reflecting Enlightenment principles of order and balance. Less than a half-century later, Mormons settling Utah (where the bee is the state symbol) adopted the hive as a metaphor for their protected and close-knit culture that revolved around industry, harmony, frugality, and cooperation. In the Great Depression, beehives provided food and bartering goods for many farm families, and during World War II, the War Food Administration urged beekeepers to conserve every ounce of beeswax their bees provided, as more than a million pounds a year were being used in the manufacture of war products ranging from waterproofing products to tape.

The bee remains a bellwether in modern America. Like so many other insects and animals, the bee population was decimated by the growing use of chemical pesticides in the 1970s. Nevertheless, beekeeping has experienced a revival as natural products containing honey and beeswax have increased the visibility and desirability of the honey bee. Still a powerful representation of success, the industrious honey bee continues to serve both as a source of income and a metaphor for globalization as America emerges as a leader in the Information Age.

Tammy Horn teaches at Berea College. She learned beekeeping from her grandfather, who grew up hunting bee trees in eastern Kentucky.

Reviews:

"Bees in America is a fabulous treatment of how the honey bee shaped social, political, and economic attitudes during colonization and beyond in America. The story is still a very important one today." -North Vernon Sun

"Provides a thorough social history of America, examining all possible instances of honey bee imagery used in cultural contexts. Well referenced. Readable and recommended for anyone who appreciated off beat perspectives in social history." -Northeastern Naturalist

"Ambitious. . . . Takes the reader deep into the American side of this sprawling story." -Books and Culture

"A useful book. . . . A comprehensive history of bees in America." -Canadian Journal of History

"An effective blend of humor and serious scholarship. . . . It merits wide readership." -Southern Historian

"A scholarly, but readable, look at the influence of the honey bee throughout America's history." -Kentucky Monthly

"Bees in America is, at its most basic, a cultural history of not just a small insect, but of a sports logo, commercials, art, adages, and farming. . . . Full of enough oddball information (and archival photography and artwork) that it'll keep you busy as a . . . well, you know." -Blue Ridge Business Journal

"Will most appeal to American history buffs, who may be surprised to learn how bees, honey, and beekeepers figure in events, prominent and obscure, that shaped our nation." -Zoogoer

"This excellent example of the effects agriculture has on history will be a welcome addition." -Booklist

"Introduces some big political ideas that are very much worth knowing about. . . . Also full of the kind of rich detail that a narrow focus, paradoxically, makes room for." -Christian Science Monitor

"Horn brilliantly creates a richly researched and wonderfully written text. Even those who view bees with some degree of horror will be pleasantly surprised." -New York Resident

"From the honey producers of ancient times to today's military scouts, bees have always been at the center of history, and Tammy Horn's books gives an excellent overview of how and why." -Invention & Technology

"Bee folklore, science, and history recounted in a delightful book full of anecdotes and facts which will spark admiration for this sometimes overlooked part of our nation's agriculture." -Times of Acadiana

"You will love this book. . . . That honey bees helped shape America cannot be disputed. Here are many of the ways they worked their magic." -Bee Culture

"The honey bee isn't native to the U.S., but it's hard to imagine the country without it. Horn...provides a wealth of worthy material about bees in America, from the use of the hive metaphor to justify colonization in the 1500s and 1600s, to bees' role in pollinating the prairies and orchards that we now take for granted." -Publishers Weekly

"Honey bees and man have traveled a long and perilous journey from their tentative first flights in colonial America to the intensely managed, politically volatile pollination fields of a modern, fertile California. Horn traces the many paths of honey bee and human interaction in America and weaves them together for a colorful, intimate and in-depth tale that grandly encompasses keen inventions, slavery, religion, war, economics, politics, and the global market place, to produce the fabric of our American experience for over 400 years." -Kim Flottum, Editor, BeeCulture

"Filled with piquant anecdotes about bees and their keepers, drawn from a wide range of sources." -Richard Schweid, author of The Cockroach Papers and Consider the Eel

"I... think it is great that Horn has written a book on beekeeping history that will appeal to the general public, as well as beekeepers. I know that U.S. beekeepers will be grateful that Tammy Horn is sharing the story of their love affair with [the] honey bee to the general population. I can't help but believe that after reading Horn's book, more people will be stimulated to explore the wonderful world of beekeeping! Bees in America is a welcome respite from our fast-paced, technology-driven society."--Joe Graham, editor of American Bee Journal

"A fascinating and very readable cultural history of bees and beekeeping in the United States." -Choice

"Horn's social history of bees and beekeeping in the United States reveals how integral bees have been to the settlement and culture of our country." -Lexington Herald-Leader

"Shows how bees, since their arrival in America, have affected people, like their impact on native peoples and their use by colonists." -Utah Historical Quarterly

"Offers a cultural, social and technological history of beekeeping, from the time the practice was introduced into the New World by the British as a form of livelihood and sustenance to the present." -Associated Press [Orangeburg] (SC) Times and Democrat, Staten Island (NY) Advance, Fayetteville (NC) Observer, (Melbourne) Florida Today, Yakima (WA) Herald-Republic, Gwinnett (GA) Daily Post, Middletown (CT) Herald Press, Bristol (CT) Herald Press, Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, Vicksburg (MS) Post, (Sevierville, TN) Mountain Press, Fort Wayne (IN) News-Sentinel, Naples (FL) Daily News, Athens (AL) News-Courier, Burlington County (NJ) Times, Doylestown (PA) Intelligencer, Bucks County (PA) Courier Times

"Horn shows the potential for cultural studies to reach out in new directions&will appeal to non-specialist audiences&entertaining and informative." -Appalachian Journal

"Integrates history, technology, sociology, economics, and politics with this remarkable insect serving as the unifying concept." -Buffalo News