The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees

Karl von Frisch

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967 - Nature - 566 pages

Until his death in 1982, Karl von Frisch was the world's most renowned authority on bees. The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees is his masterwork--the culmination of more than fifty years of research. Now available for the first time in paperback, it describes in non-technical language what he discovered in a lifetime of study about honeybees--their methods of orientation, their sensory faculties, and their remarkable ability to communicate with one another. Thomas Seeley's new foreword traces the revolutionary effects of von Frisch's work, not just for the study of bees, but for all subsequent research in animal behavior. This new paperback edition also includes an "Appreciation" of von Frisch by the distinguished biologist Martin Lindauer, who was Frisch's protégé and later his colleague and friend.

Contents

• Historical: 3
• Methods in General: 7
• Heatable observation hives: 12

About the author

The Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch achieved international recognition for his pioneer research on sense functions in fish and for his discovery of the "language" of bees. In The Dancing Bees, von Frisch explains how these insects are able to communicate the direction, quantity, and quality of food through dances. As a student, von Frisch studied medicine and zoology in Vienna and Munich. In 1910 he joined the faculty of the University of Munich and was associated with it intermittently until his retirement as professor of zoology in 1958. He also spent many years as the director of the zoological institutes in Rostock, Breslau, and Munich and was active in the international scientific community, lecturing in the United States and Europe. In 1959 von Frisch was awarded the Kalinga Prize and in 1963 a Balzan Prize. In 1973 he shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for his contributions in sociobiology. Von Frisch died at the age of 96, ending a productive and rewarding life.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees
• Author: Karl von Frisch
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Aug 4, 2009
• ISBN: 0674190513, 9780674190511
• Length: 566 pages
• Subjects: Nature / Animals / Insects & Spiders; Nature / General; Science / General; Science / Life Sciences / Biology; Science / Life Sciences / Zoology / Entomology