After reading Mind of a Raven I have been on a sociobiology trip. I discovered some new way to understand nature and superorganisms and this is the first book where I get to explore this relatively new science, both to me and the world. Its intent is to study the social relationships of eusocial organisms through observing them and by biology. E. O. Wilson posited the theory that societies can be explored partly from biology. It is an interesting theory and makes for some very interesting reading.
In Honeybee Democracy, the author goes over the various stages that a swarm of honeybees moves, decides, and goes to a new hive site. Seeley discusses each step and goes over his sometimes ingenious tests to determine how the swarm acts as a whole. He basically compared the 3lb swarm to a primate brain and how it works. It was a convincing comparison. Though the book was over 200 pages, I felt it could have been at least twice as long. It was a fairly comprehensive book, but so much of the life of honeybees was necessarily left out to avoid making a giant tome of a book. I would have liked to see a larger book, but what I got was extremely readable in the way Bernd Heinrich is readable. This book was an easy read for a layman, such as I am.
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