These two  phrases probably represent all that most people know
about the honey bee which survives in the wild from the Tropics
almost to the Arctic Circle. The physics and chemistry associated with
most aspects of honeybees and their behviour are considered with
observations on bee history and archeology , the construction and
properties of honeycomb, the unusual properties of wax and honey ,
temperature control of the colony , the bee ' engine ' , bee muscle and
how it works , the aerodynamics and controls for bee flight , the
physics of bee vision , mechanisms for navigation and some bee
communication techniques  ( languages ) used to control behaviour and
ensure the collection, management and storage of ~ 100 to ~ 200 kg of
water , nectar and pollen each year to guarantee the collective survival
of the 10000 to 100000 bees in each colony , all this without any
apparent committee meetings !

Ian was born and educated in Manchester His first job in 1962 was to
help prepare the illustrations for Prof (now Lord) Flowers Atomic
Physics courses. In 1966,  while a Lecturer in Physics at Manchester ,
Ian was the first to propose and to  use the 5 Gev NINA high energy
physics accelerator at DaresburyLaboratory  for synchrotron radiation
research . In 1970, Ian , with others, sought and was awarded a grant
of £270k to help establish the now world famous SRS ( Synchrotron
Radiation Source ) at Daresbury Laboratory .He retired as Director
and Head of Daresbury in 1997and became Monbusho Visiting
Professor at I.M.S. (Institute for Molecular Sciences ) at Okazaki in
Japan .He was madeHonorary Professor of Physics at Aberdeen
University in 1985 and is an Honorary  Scientist of CLRC (Daresbury
and Rutherford Laboratories) He is currently Professor of Synchrotron
Radiation at UMIST.
Ian is a Council member of the Manchester Lit & PhilSociety and is
assembling material for a monograph on Peter Clare ,the  Manchester
clock and instrument maker and very close friend of John Dalton .He
has kept bees for over 30 years and in 1987 was awarded75k ecus-
now euros!, to construct the first UV/VUV scanning confocal
micoscope to study bees eyes .
Ian runs a small farm in Cheshire with his wife Caroline....