The Bees

by Laline Paull

Paperback, 2014

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Genres

Publication

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (2014), 352 pages

Description

Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive, where work and sacrifice are the highest virtues and worship of the beloved Queen the only religion. But Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw, but her courage and strength are assets. She is allowed to feed the newborns in the royal nursery and then to become a forager, flying alone and free to collect nectar and pollen. A feat of bravery grants her access to the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous. But when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all'daring to challenge the Queen's preeminence'enemies abound, from the fearsome fertility police who enforce the hive's strict social hierarchy to the high priestesses jealously wedded to power. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by a greater power: a fierce maternal love that will bring her into conflict with her conscience, her heart, and her society'and lead her to perform unthinkable deeds. Thrilling, suspenseful, and spectacularly imaginative, The Bees and its dazzling young heroine will forever change the way you look at the world outside your window.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member ecataldi

An intriguing look into the life of a bee and her hive. I never would have imagined that someone could write an entire book from the perspective of a bee, but boy was I wrong! Laline Paul beautifully writes the story of Flora 717, a lowly sanitation worker whose peculiar observations and actions

set her apart from the other bees. Flora 717 longs to do more than clean the hive, she wants to be near her Queen mother, be able to fly and forage for food, lay eggs, and see the world. Her aspirations set her apart and in no time she is jumping from job to job in the hive. This book really illustrates the industrious lives of all the bees who live in hives. From the sanitation workers to the drones, foragers, and priestesses, no stone is left un-turned in this highly imaginative and highly researched novel. You will learn more about bees then you ever knew existed and will hold them in higher regard for this fascinating read is most eye opening.

A must read for gardeners, insect lovers, and.... really anyone. It's fascinating!

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LibraryThing member julie10reads

Flora 717, a lowly sanitation bee, is born with unusual features and abilities that allow her to move fluidly between the strict hierarchies of her hive. Through this ability, she witnesses the brutality and beauty that the various castes of bees exhibit to keep the hive productive, all in service

and loyalty to the queen. But when Flora discovers she is fertile and can produce an offspring, she must betray her instincts to worship the queen bee and follow an untrodden path that leads her away from her kin. Summary BPL

Laline Paull, in her debut novel, has pulled off an amazing feat: an absorbing 338 page novel about the life of one bee, Flora 717 (do I detect echoes of Jean Valjean....24601?). I feared for and cheered for Flora and couldn't put the book down!

This book was an out of the blue recommendation from LibraryThing. But it makes sense: the political structure of the hive has so many connections to human government. We humans have historically been fascinated with bees and their government. The hive has the reputation of a utopia--a perfect society where each knows her place and function and all work together towards the good of all.

Accept Obey Serve The rule of the hive. Margaret Atwood calls THE BEES "a gripping Cinderella, Arthurian take". It is being reviewed as a "dystopian" novel, comparing Laline Paull to Orwell and Atwood.

To convey the scale and tone of Flora's world, Ms Paull infuses her tale with a kind of medieval grandeur; I can see why Margaret Atwood described it as "Arthurian". Manners and speech are worthy of the court of King Arthur. And although the bees "think", which some readers will decry as anthropomorphism, they do so within their identities in the hive. This unveiled the mysteries of the hive's inner workings for me, and how the strata of bee society bear many similarities to our own...even though it is a female society--with males relegated to stud service.

Flora 717 is an engaging, noble protagonist. Her fears and struggles endear her to the reader. No cutesiness here--unless you consider an apian Joan of Arc cute! My highest praise goes to Ms Paull for making the hive interior knowable, like a palace, and the experience of scent and vibrations as real communication. And hive mind! Have to admit, it made me think of organized religion; particularly Catholicism. (Am I going to be pushed out of the hive/heaven for writing that?)

9 out of 10 Highly recommended to all!

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LibraryThing member klburnside

This book is a novel about a hive of bees and one bee in particular who doesn't fit in, in particular when she starts laying eggs despite the fact that she is not the queen. I am incredibly fascinated by bees. I think their social structure and intelligence is amazing and when I read about the

book, I thought it would be a great way to learn more. As far as I could tell the book was very accurate in regards to bee behavior and I feel like I should have learned a lot. However, I found the characters to be annoying, I got tired of reading about the Queen mother's love, all the different scents, recitations of hive prayers, worshipping his maleness, etc. By the time I got to the end of the book, I was mostly just skimming.

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LibraryThing member Fence

From the moment she emerges out of her cell Flora 717 is not like the other bees. She has been born a sanitation bee, meant to clean and to take orders from all other orders of bees. But unlike her sisters she can talk. And soon she learns that she can be more. She can nurse and forage. She can

become more than what she was born into.

But the bees of her hive live according to order and caste. The Sage sisters, the priestesses of the hive seem to have plans of their own, and in this time of shortage and uncertainty are they damaging the good of the hive? Or is the actions of Flora 717 that are so terrible?

I’m sure the very premise of this book is off-putting to some. How could someone write an entire book about the fictionalised life of a bee? And een if they did, why would anyone read it?

Well, that second one is an easy one to answer, because it isn’t every day that a novel has a bee as its hero. The unusual often grabs people’s attention. Yes, some may be put off by it, but I’m sure that most of those who read the book will enjoy it. I know I did.

The first thing you learn when reading The Bees is that Flora is a bee. She isn’t a human dressed up as a bee. She behaves according to instinct and chemical prompting. Her reactions and actions are not what a person might or might not do, although of course they are actions created by a human mind. Still, in many ways her world is utterly alien to the human world.

Which makes the book all the more entertaining if you ask me.

There is a rigid caste system1 which means that you can read this book as a commentary on human society and tyrannical power systems. There are hints of racism and prejudice everywhere. Every insect but bees are unclean and looked down on by the bees. And the different castes within the hive look down and compete with one another for power, if high ranking enough.

There is intrigue and action. Some of it very bloody and graphic, but that is nature in operation.

I originally decided to read this book because the author, Paull, is the British daughter of first-generation Indian immigrants and so it fitted into my Diverse Universe reading. Unfortunately I didn’t get it finished in time but I’m still really glad to have read it. It is a book that delights in being different from the usual human-centered stories. And it also highlights some of the plights of the honeybee today; pesticides, single crop farming, lack of native plants etc.

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LibraryThing member LibraryCin

3.5 stars

In a bee society, Flora 717 is meant to be a worker bee, more specifically, a Sanitation worker, and she is not allowed to be anything else. But, somehow Flora manages to try out all kinds of different jobs, from working in the nursery to foraging, and she even manages to get invited to

see the Queen! However, the Queen is the only bee who can procreate, but Flora manages to lay three eggs…

This was quite different, to read the story from the viewpoint of bees. It was good, but for me, wasn’t great. It was kind of interesting, as I really know very little about bees, including their predators. I guess I just had never thought about it. Like with historical fiction, I would have liked an author’s note of some kind, explaining which behaviours in the story really are bee-like and which behaviours were just for the story.

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LibraryThing member indygo88

Regretfully, I had to bail on this one. I just wasn't feeling it. Not sure if it was the audio, the subject, or my mood at the time. I may revisit it some day, but today is not the day.

LibraryThing member memccauley6

I had to admit defeat and gave up about halfway through this one. From the blurb, I was expecting a dystopian culture based on a beehive.

No. It is about *actual bees*

I love bees, but the vary degrees of anthropomorphizing throughout the story made it really hard to get emotionally invested in any

of the characters.

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LibraryThing member mjlivi

I really struggled to get into this - the writing is fine and the plot feels action-packed, but I couldn't really bring myself to care about the 'characters'.

LibraryThing member JBD1

A vivid and intense dystopian novel told from the perspective a humble worker bee, with rich textural details of hive architecture and apian caste structure, superorganisms and their characteristics. I got sucked into this one quickly and enjoyed it immensely. While Paull has had to take some

literary license with bee science in order to make the story work, I found I didn't really mind all that much in the end (though an author's note about this would not have gone amiss).

An impressive debut; I'll certainly be watching for more works from Laline Paull.

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LibraryThing member Lukerik

Such a good novel. Really hallucinogenic. Set in a hive where the walls are frescoed with scent. Scent is a solid, veiling faces, blocking paths, imparting information and controlling minds. The bees are anthropomorphised just enough that you can understand what’s going on and care. The book is

really about us.

The bees live in a monarchical theocracy. Paull has a lot to say on the subject. It put me in mind of a mix of Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid’s Tail (but with bees). She has a lot to say about human behaviour regardless of the political system, particularly about crime and sin and how we deal with it. From the descriptions I take it that the hive is infected with the Deformed Wing Virus. They take the symptoms to be a result of crime and perform scapegoating rituals to keep the blame contained. They take thelytokous parthenogenesis to be a sin and perform human (I mean bee) sacrifices to remove the sin from society. This raises a number of disturbing questions in my mind. Questions about human agency, questions about where blame lies and how it can be moved around, preferably away from us.

Unfortunately there’s no time to answers as the pace of this book is break-neck. I read 250 pages in a single sitting.

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LibraryThing member nyiper

I have no idea how she managed to make me feel as though I was actually IN the beehive with Flora---the descriptions were incredible---making the bees come to life, yes, an imaginary life, but what a picture it created! I am totally impressed with the writing---really, a wonderful book!!!!

LibraryThing member BenjaminHahn

Although this is a character driven novel, all I could envision while reading this awesome book were childhood memories of hazy 80's PBS documentary footage of interior beehives. That and some of the superior slow motion HD footage of bees on BBC these past few years. As a story, Laline Paull's The

Bees is captivating, unique, and kind of bizarre. It sort of reminded me of a Richard Adam's talking animal book, except these were bees, theocratic and authoritarian bees. Paull has clearly done a lot of entomology research on bee science. I found myself intermittently putting down the book and looking up various bee science facts on the internet because I kept finding myself flabbergasted by the complex nature of bee communications. At the same time, and this is really the best part, Paull created fantastic characters that I truly cared about. That's hard to do when your main character is an insect behaving and acting like a real insect. That was the real trick here in this book: how do you make an automaton insect with a hive mind an interesting individual? But I think she managed to pull it off. The infusion of religious dogma and the whole bee outlook on the outside world was believable and consequential to the plot. My favorite scene involved a wasp attacking the hive. That doesn't sound like much at first glance, but on paper it was a very intense and detailed battle. Paull also manages to pull in some subtle themes on pesticides, big agriculture, cell phone towers, and the mysterious bee die-off that has hit the states this past decade. After a great ending all I was really left wondering is what Paull is going to write next.

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LibraryThing member AliceaP

Flora 717 is a worker bee and the protagonist of Laline Paull's The Bees. It may sound completely far-fetched to write a story from the perspective of a bee but insanely it worked amazingly well. This author clearly did her entomological research. The story revolves around a sanitation bee born to

a hive where she is at the lowest rung of society (in fact, others in her kin have not developed speech and she is marked as an oddity). At every turn, she defies convention and strikes out on her own course. Fraught with class division, religious fanaticism, and sexism The Bees gave me an entirely new insight into bee behavior...and made me crave honey. If you're looking for a book unlike any other then I encourage you to give this one a shot...unless you're terrified of bees in which case you'd best steer clear.

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LibraryThing member mcelhra

Do you have reader friends who give you book recommendations that just up your alley? One of my go-to friends for book recommendations is Kelly. I love 99.9% of the books she has recommended to me. One of those books is The Bees. The Bees is about a bee colony that is totally devoted to their

queen. In fact, that’s their motto, “Accept, Obey and Serve.” If there is any strife in the hive, the queen releases her Queen’s Love scent and everyone calms down, prostrating and chanting, “Accept, Obey and Serve.”

The bees are divided into castes called kin groups with each group having a different job in the hive. Flora 717 is born into the flora kin, which is sanitation, the lowest of the low. However, she is different from the rest of her kin. She is bigger and has the power of speech while the rest of her kin are speechless. When she is first hatched and the other bees notice that she is unusual, I thought, “Oh great, it’s Divergent in bee form.” But thankfully it soon becomes clear that it’s not.

Flora’s purpose is a mystery right up until the very end. Why was she born into the flora kin when she doesn’t fit in? Why can she do things that only the Queen is supposed to do? The Bees has a dark and Orwellian atmosphere that I found captivating. Since The Bees is so good I’m surprised I haven’t heard any buzz about it. (Get it? Buzz!) Anyway, thanks Kelly!

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LibraryThing member Cataloger623

The Bees by Laline Paull
Is the simple story of a bee in a hive. The premise is simple a Bee is born lives and dies over the course of a year. The story is not. The story is compelling . After you read this book you will never look at bee or bee hive thee same way again. This is not a simple fairy

tale where the forces good and evil are pitted against each other. Yet book can be accessed as a morality tale or an adventure story. The main characters is deeply flawed with moments of grand nobility. There are heroines and unexpected heroes in this story but all have feet of clay and are willing to be evil to accomplish their goals. Laline’s writing style is clear and crisp. She makes the alien environment , and politics of the Hive completely accessible and understandable to the reader. The book will remind some of Water ship Down: while there are superficial similarities this story is grittier.

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LibraryThing member skrouhan

Have you ever read a book where throughout the entirety of the novel you debate putting it down vs. seeing it through to the end? This was one of those books. The premise was interesting enough - Flora 717 is a worker bee born into the lowest caste, Sanitation, yet we immediately learn she is

different from the others. Although loyal to the Queen, she is not as compelled by the "Accept, Obey and Serve" motto of the hive, and is able to do things that only the higher up classes can do. Through her rebellion, she is granted opportunities to explore different jobs of the hive, encountering various sorts of encounters and perils. Soon, she develops a dangerous secret that goes against everything she is allowed to do, forcing her to question the meaning of loyalty, devotion, and love. Although the beginning of the novel is ever so slightly reminiscent of Divergent, it doesn't stay that way for long.

Although there are clear threads that tie the entire plot together - which I won't spoil for the rest of you! - I felt like the novel jumped around quite a bit. At times, it seemed like Flora's role changes were simply a convenient way for the author to explore different aspects of a hive. While I did enjoy reading about the different kins and their responsibilities, and most of Flora's dangerous encounters (i.e. wasp fights, cunning spiders, etc.), the plot itself seemed a little jumbled.... I don't know, maybe I would have enjoyed it more if there were a few different character narratives. Honestly, there were times when I found myself enjoying the author's writing style more than what was actually going on in the plot... but something about Flora made me keep reading through to the end.

Laline Paull opens an interesting discussion on society and politics, repression, religion and hierarchy - and arguably even love - that I found intriguing, although certainly themes I've read before. The most creative and captivating thing about this book, in my opinion, is simply the amount of work that went into creating the bee environment.

In short: if unusual dystopian novels really tickle your fancy, I would recommend picking this one up. I think I'll stick with Atwood.

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LibraryThing member LynnB

I thought this book was okay. I really enjoyed hearing about life in the hive, and the author has done a good job in describing it. I found the level to which the bees were personified inconsistent....sometimes, it felt like life in a real hive, then the bees started carrying dustpans or serving

trays which made it feel more like a Disney movie.

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LibraryThing member SandyHogarth

The Bees - Laline Paull

An extraordinary feat of imagination. I shall never again see a bee or a spider or a wasp without thinking of this book. It is anthropomorphism that works brilliantly.Full of tension and surprise. A complicated plot that remains perfectly clear to the reader.

Flora’s

adventures hold us from start to finish with some nail biting moments: her bravery, her loyalty to her kin, her difference. She is a sanitation worker - the lowest kin of the hive. Her pride brings her down again and again.We love her.

Smell is the key to the bee society. We feel the bees longing for the flowers (mutual) and their scent, and the different scent of the kin mark them out in the bee society.The higher hierarchy play mind games - Flora has to keep her antennae closed against their reading her mind, especially the thought police. She rises to be an expert forager - does the dance in the dance hall to tell the other foragers where to find the sweetest nectar. She encounters her deadly cousins, the wasps, the inferior race in an ancient feud. And the spiders who know the secrets of the hive - ‘knowledge is power’. Who will be the next one to die. They warn that Flora’s actions will rake havoc in the hive.

We meet the drones - all honour to their maleness - and find tribal conflict self sacrifice, austerity, eugenics, a police state, anarchy and the fight to the death between two tribes.; a detailed and precise hierarchy with Holy Mother at top. We feel the love of all the sisters for their mother: honour, accept and obey, the mantra that is repeated over and over. Only Holy Mother may give birth and only she knows love for her offspring.

Great plot, provocative content and superb writing. Loved it

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LibraryThing member norabelle414

The very dramatic world of a beehive, as seen through the eyes of a bee. It reminded me a lot of [Watership Down], but with bees. It was very good at first - a little bit like a dystopia. It did drag on after awhile, and I finished the book in audio instead of paper because of that. It's a fun and

interesting read, but I don't know how much of it was really accurate by the end. Bees aren't much for introspection so I doubt a realistic bee novel would have been much fun.

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LibraryThing member rmckeown

When I first heard about The Bees by Laline Paull, I was skeptical, but then I remembered the same skepticism I had when I heard about The Wild Trees by Richard Preston. Trees affected me deeply, and completely changed the way I look at these magnificent creatures. A slight buzz drifted through

journals and newspapers about the novel, so I decided to plunge in and see for myself. One of the things that drove me to this decision were the three excellent blurbs on the cover by Margaret Atwood, Emma Donoghue, and Madeline Miller. I have read all three of these authors, and I trust their judgment.

Debut novels almost always throw up a red flag, but I believe this is one of the best I have seen in a long time. The author’s note on the jacket flap is sparse. She studied English at Oxford, screenwriting in Los Angeles, and theater in London. She lives in England with her photographer husband and their three children.

The novel tells the story of Flora 717, a “sanitation worker” in a hive, set in the English countryside. The hive runs under a strict hierarchy: the Queen – referred to as the “holy mother” – then “princesses” referred to as the “Sage Class,” then forager bees, drones (males who live off the hive, but die when they first mate with a queen). Flora has aspirations of a higher status, but breaking into that 1% at the top of the hive is nigh near impossible.

The bees have an intricate system of communication involving the smells they leave behind and follow home. The have elaborate dances to transfer the knowledge of blooming flowers to the other foragers. I recall writing a paper about "The Dance Language of Honey Bees" when I was in high school. They also communicate telepathically through their antennae about their hopes, fears, and sins.

The novel is heavily allegorical with many references to “Holy Mother,” “Devotion meetings” when the hive gathers to experience the love of the mother. A constant chant among the bees is “Accept, Obey, Serve.” They pray for the mother to lay healthy eggs, chanting “Hallowed be thy womb” (75). The hive really rises to the level of a cult.

Paull writes, “conversations always concluded with the acknowledgement that Her Majesty continued to lay at magnificent speed and volume and was more beautiful than ever, and as she was the mightiest force in the universe, this rain must be a sign of her displeasure, and so they must all work harder. Accept, Obey, and Serve” (137).

After a forbidden dalliance with a drone, which may have been non-consensual, Flora finds herself about to lay an egg. Only the queen may breed, and the penalty for Flora would be death. But a “visitation” occurs, when a beekeeper removes part of the comb, and Flora’s egg is destroyed.

I will never look at bees, bee hives, and honey the same way again. Laline Paull’s splendid novel, The Bees, is a most entertaining read, and I gladly give it 5 stars

--Jim, 6/30/14

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LibraryThing member JoAnneStein

I heard about this book from Simon Savidge of the podcast The Readers. I'd previously never come across it and as soon as he mentioned the premise, I had to get my hands on it. I love unique science fiction books and lately have been enjoying reading books where you learn about animals as you read

(recently finished Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult which involves elephants and was fascinating).

The concept of this book is so unique and original. It takes the bee hive and makes it into a bit of a dystopian society with hierarchy and rules and you're not supposed to question anything. I also thought it was a bit of a commentary on the environment and how bees are disappearing and how important they are. Reading this made me even more sympathetic toward these amazing creatures.

I have to say it wasn't entirely what I was expecting and perhaps because I read it over a long period of time I didn't find it quite as gripping or suspenseful. Still, I really enjoyed the novelty of it and it was an enjoyable reading experience. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys unique sci fi or enjoys learning about animals through fiction.

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LibraryThing member schatzi

This is one of those books that I just couldn't get into no matter how much I tried. And I did try - I read nearly half of the book before giving up and just skimming the rest. And, at the end, I still felt nothing for the book or its characters.

Maybe it's because they ARE bees? I don't know. It's

not like I've never enjoyed anthropomorphic books before - Animal Farm is still one of my favorite books, and I was crazy about the Rats of NIMH series when I was a kid. But I don't particularly like bees, probably because I'm quite allergic to them. And they're bugs. Never been a big bug fan.

One of the things that really caught me off guard is the bees saying "amen" at one point. Why? Their religion didn't seem much like Judaism or any of its derivatives.

And I'm not getting why this book is being billed as "dystopian." Yes, I suppose that there could be a relatively poor metaphor to humanity in here somewhere, but...the characters are real bees, and the way their culture is set up in the book is virtually identical to what bees actually do in the wild. There is a queen bee. There are worker bees and drones. Breeding is strictly controlled. Yes, if they were PEOPLE, this could be a dystopian. But bees? That's just how their world rolls.

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LibraryThing member missizicks

An apian Watership Down mixed with elements of 1984, Shakespeare and The Handmaid's Tale, The Bees is certainly a ripping yarn. It went on slightly too long for me and had an overblown ending that made me think of Alien vs Predator. I appreciated the research that had gone into understanding bee

society and biology. For the most part I didn't mind the anthropomorphising of the bees, but occasionally I found it cheesy. There are exciting moments as the heroine of the tale goes against the rules of her society and becomes a freedom fighter in the face of totalitarian rule, but around the 75% mark, I began to feel a little bored and wanted it to end. While I'm certain that the final showdown is based on fact, the anthropomorphising made it slightly ridiculous, and the epilogue was far too twee for my taste.

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LibraryThing member cygnoir

I knew from the first chapter that I would be desperately sad to finish this book, and I am. It is a gorgeous, thoughtful story with compelling characters and an emotional, satisfying conclusion -- and Paull did this all not with humans but with bees. Brilliant work.

LibraryThing member brokenangelkisses

I enjoy reading dystopian fiction and I like bees, as long as they stay next to the flowers and away from my children, but I'll be honest: I think it was the brilliant yellow cover that first attracted my attention.

What's it about?

Flora 717 is a worker bee born into the lowest kin in her

totalitarian hive society. Focused almost entirely on her need to accept, serve, and obey the Queen and her priestesses, Flora gradually takes on different roles within what is otherwise a very strictly segregated community and, in so doing, begins to reveal the secrets at the heart of the hive. Then she commits the greatest sin possible in her deeply religious society; can she survive it? Can her hive?

What's it like?

Fascinating, if slightly perplexing at times. I spent much of the novel thinking "Do bees really DO that?" and a slightly ridiculous period of time after reading the final pages Googling to find out. The short answer is, mostly, yes. For instance, bees really do dance to communicate to other bees where they have located pollen and honey. The bees within the hive exist in a deeply rigid theocracy, and the initial chapters establish the way this society works as Flora hatches and is inducted into her designated role via an 'experiment'.

From the outset, I found the storytelling convincing as I followed Flora's progress. There are a few odd moments, such as bees eating 'bread' in a 'canteen', when the humanising of the bees risks undermining the reality of the mileau, but on the whole this is an interestingly realised tale of wasp attacks, religious purges, internal massacres and the joy of flight, to name just a few elements.
Is it really a dystopia?

Some commentators have made comparisons with Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale'; others have pointed out that this tale is really about bees being bees and seem to have felt cheated into reading the novel by a comparison they subsequently deemed invalid. While the bees are definitely "being bees", throughout the novel Paull draws us into a dark world full of threatening sage priestesses who are concealing brutal secrets at the centre of the hive. This is a strictly hierarchical society in which the most powerful deliberately deprive the least powerful of knowledge in order to sustain the status quo. Traitors risk violent execution and order is partly sustained through the repetition of simple mantras.

Creating a particular type of novel is, obviously, not just a matter of ticking certain boxes, but this novel certainly contains many features typical of dystopian fiction; the whole work feels politically charged and the society depicted is clearly oppressive. It feels dystopian to me and while you certainly could read this as simply a fascinating tale about bees being bees, I defy you not to read something more into the shocking scene when the sisters turn upon the remaining drones. Carefully developed anthropomorphism like this encourages readers to make connections to their own world, and Paull herself says: 'the most constant comment I’ve had from readers is “I’ll never look at bee[s] the same way again.”'

Final thoughts

As the seasons shift, the rhythms of the hive alter and a year passes by. Flora gradually changes and becomes almost invincible. She survives wasp attacks, cunning spiders, strange telephone poles, devious sisters and the strange machinations of her own body. In short, as is typical in this kind of fiction, she ceases to be an 'everyman' or 'everywoman' and becomes a heroine, daringly subverting established norms in an attempt to promote her own interests above those of the state. This makes for exciting fiction, but. BUT.

WHY is Flora 717 alone able to transcend supposedly "untranscendable" boundaries? And yes, obviously, she has to in order to create an exciting plot...but that's Paull's motivation, and is not relevant to the logic of the book's inner world. There are hints that she's born of a slightly different strain of bee, but I didn't find this sufficient to make her into the super-bee she becomes.

Perhaps this is a minor quibble, given how quickly I read the book and how thoroughly I enjoyed reading it, but her situation reminded me a little of those action films starring Bruce Willis where the bad guys and good guys always get up and stagger on, even if you drop a car on them. While both novels and films require us to suspend our disbelief, too much suspense does invite collapse.

Speaking of which...the novel's brief prologue and epilogue remind readers of the ways humans interact with bees and seem designed to encourage us to feel a greater sense of guardianship, particularly in light of modern fears about colony collapse disorder.

Overall, this is a fascinating read about a rather incredible insect that has somehow so far avoided becoming the star of a Disney film. Well worth reading. And when you're done, you might feel inspired to watch the next bee you see rather more closely.

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