The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe »

Loree Griffin Burns, Ph.D., did her doctoral at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Ms. Burns lives in Massachusetts with her husband and children. She is the author of Tracking Trash and The Hive Detectives.

Without honey bees the world would be a different place. There would be no honey, no beeswax for candles, and, worst of all, barely a fruit, nut, or vegetable to eat. So imagine beekeeper Dave Hackenburg’s horror when he discovered twenty million of his charges had vanished. Those missing bees became the first casualties of a mysterious scourge that continues to plague honey bee populations today. In The Hive Detectives, Loree Griffin Burns profiles bee wranglers and bee scientists who have been working to understand colony collapse disorder, or CCD. In this dramatic and enlightening story, readers explore the lives of the fuzzy, buzzy insects and learn what might happen to us if they were gone.

Children's Literature

In 2006, a commercial beekeeper lost all the bees in 400 hundred of his hives for a total of 20 million bees. To unravel the mystery, four respected scientists began an investigation to seek the cause of the bees' disappearance. What follows for readers is the unraveling of a mystery to match any fictional whodunit. One by one, leads are followed and discarded, but despite many theories, this mystery has yet to be solved. The book also includes the work of amateur beekeeper Mary Duane and follows her to her hives to watch her care for her bees and learn the fascinating process of extracting honey from the hive, which the author calls "liquid gold." Along the way, readers pick up information on the social structure of the hive, physical description and division of labor of its inhabitants, and the vital role of bees in the agricultural world. Faux notebook-style pages introduce each scientist as well as provide some hive and bee information. The accompany photos, in addition to being well composed, are dramatic and colorful. An extended appendix and comprehensive glossary and index round out this highly readable and worthy science book. Reviewer: Beverley Fahey