Apples, blueberries, peppers, cucumbers, coffee, and vanilla. Do you like to eat and drink? Then you might want to thank a bee. Bees pollinate 75 percent of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the United States. Around the world, bees pollinate $24 billion worth of crops each year. Without bees, humans would face a drastically reduced diet. We need bees to grow the foods that keep us healthy. But numbers of bees are falling, and that has scientists alarmed. What's causing the decline? Diseases, pesticides, climate change, and loss of habitat are all threatening bee populations. Some bee species teeter on the brink of extinction. Learn about the many bee species on Earth—their nests, their colonies, their life cycles, and their vital connection to flowering plants. Most importantly, find out how you can help these important pollinators. "If we had to try and do what bees do on a daily basis, if we had to come out here and hand pollinate all of our native plants and our agricultural plants, there is physically no way we could do it. . . . Our best bet is to conserve our native bees." —ecologist Rebecca Irwin, North Carolina State University

レベッカ・Ｅ・ハーシュの本作は、食を支える「見えない隣人」への敬意と警告に満ちた生命の叙事詩です。受粉が織りなす連鎖の尊さと、その崩壊が招く未来への警鐘は、世界観を揺さぶります。科学的知見と情熱が融合した筆致は、自然界の営みを文学的体験へと昇華させます。 映像版はハチの目線を圧倒的な美しさで描き、テキストの論理に「命の鼓動」を吹き込みます。紙で思索し、画面で躍動を体感する。このシナジーこそが生態系への想像を極限まで広げるのです。本書を手に取れば、日常の景色は劇的な輝きを帯びるでしょう。