Bees are also wild. [The Secret Lives of Garden Bees by Jean Vernon]

A friendly, accessible insight into the weird, but wonderful world of the bees you may find in your garden. From the common or garden bumblebees that nest in bird boxes, compost heaps and old mouse holes, making ‘Winnie the Pooh’ style honey pots to feed their babes, to the quirky wool carder bee; a solitary bee that combs the fluff from garden plants to line her brood cells and the amazing leaf-cutter bee that carves chunks out of plant foliage to seal its egg chambers. This book will reveal the secrets and fascinating lives of the bees that live and breed in your garden, from buzz pollination, to the bee robbers that cheat the plants and steal nectar by stealth. With a seasonal guide to explore what you are likely to see in your garden, great plants to grow to help them, plus other fascinating information on these secretive creatures, this book is designed to bring alive the world of garden bees before your very eyes.

I enjoy learning about the natural world and because I do it doesn't take much to please me. I want the technical aspects presented, if any, to be easy to understand. I want to learn new information about the intricacies of the topic at hand. Jean Vernon's The Secret Life of Garden Bees gave me all I wanted.

Parasitism in bees is just as wild to learn about as parasitism in birds was. The imagery of the Thatcher bee, also known as the Snail Nester bee, using an old snail shell, sealing it up, and then weaving a grass tapestry for camouflage was oddly entertaining and captivating. The book is centered around U.K. bees and relevant resources and that's my one negative. But in reality I don't feel negatively about that, at least not to the point of docking my rating. 5 stars for me.

The Secret Life of Garden Bees was published February 2020.