Tag: bee books

KISSING THE BEE
By Kathe Koja
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007

Category: Young adult fiction

I’m into bees at the moment and my friend Jane, worried what an uninterupted diet of buzzy non-fiction might do to me, compiled a list of novels that have something to do with bees. It is a longer list than you might think; KISSING THE BEE was right at the top…

Dana is a senior in high school busy with the drama of planning for prom, helping her best friends create a fabulous costume for the festivities, writing a biology report on honey bees, and dealing with the fact that she has fallen in love with her best friend’s boyfriend. True-blue Dana manages to keep everything under control … until the moment she realizes that Emil just might love her, too. With the vivid structure of life in the hive as a backdrop, Koje weaves a tale of chaos, living, and choosing. I’d recommend this short, sweet book even if I hadn’t found this little nugget on page 48:

“Somebody even made a robot bee that can communicate with real bees …”

Seriously? Could this be true? Off to do some more poking in the 590s (you know, the non-fiction section devoted to honey bees) …

 

A BOOK OF BEES
By Sue Hubbell
Houghton Mifflin, 1988

Category: Nonfiction for Adults

I’m immersing myself in honeybees. Not literally, of course, because I’m not ready for that; a week at the annual meeting of the Eastern Apicultural Society taught me that beekeeping is not a hobby to take up lightly. While I love the idea of keeping a few hives—for honey and for inspiration—I know the reality is a hefty commitment.

Nonetheless, I am writing about honeybee biology and honeybee biologists these days, and immersion inspires me. I’ve been working to identify the bees in my yard (lots of bumblebees, wasps, yellowjackets and others I can’t name yet … but no honeybees) and I have been reading lots. Bee books for kids and adults, bee books of fiction and nonfiction, bee books of any sort. A BOOK OF BEES is one of my early favorites.

With a comfortable and unassuming style, Sue Hubbell shares the joys, frustrations, and oddities of living and working with bees. The book guides readers through the beekeeper’s seasons, and it is impossible to read and not learn a bit about passion: passion for bees, passion for nature, passion for reveling in the rhythms of life.

I marked several choice quotes in the book, but this one gives you a good feel for the author. After describing in some detail the myriad uses, beyond eating, that humans find for honey—including the lubrication of vocal cords, the treatment of arthritis, and the defeat of Napoleon’s Grand Army–Hubbel muses:

“Well, they are all my customers, bless them, and they can do anything they want with my honey in the privacy of their homes, but I work hard to help the bees make a fine-tasting honey, and it is rather a letdown to find it is being bought for its moral qualities.”