And is there honey still for tea………..
Helen Jukes’ A Honeybee heart has Five Openings is a sweet, not saccharine, warm account, filled with the sense of purposeful, satisfying, meaningful feel-good which bees seem to symbolise
It fits neatly into a growing genre of writing-about-the-natural-world which not only includes much interesting scientific information, but is also full of emotional meaning, to the writer herself, as the subjects become part of her own biography, and also casts a wider, philosophical, historical, and even one could say political/environmental net. She explores bees themselves, but her book does not place the writer outside beeworld. She talks about relationship, the relationship she has with the bees, and they with her. This is a book about another species, sure, but not purely a rational, objective analysis of that species. The writer is changed by her encounters with them.
This should certainly appeal to all those who devoured Helen MacDonald’s soulful and intense H is for Hawk. And may even sit better with readers who perhaps were at stages of their own lives where the intensity of emotion which MacDonald explored in her journey, was too much. H is for Hawk certainly had this reader at times riven with connection to my own human suffering. Jukes’ book inhabits some sunnier uplands, and does not take the reader into the darkness of the soul which, surely, we all have at times.
Reading it was an unalloyed pleasure, deeply fascinating
The author felt a calling, after moving from London, where she had at one point assisted a professional who helps those wanting to beekeep, to Oxford. She was at a point in her life where the grind of office work and its stresses seemed to be disconnecting her from inhabiting, properly, her own life – the rush many of us feel trapped in, which can feel aimless and lacking a real direction.
I like the thought of a stability that comes from fine-tuned communication, and not the sayso of a single ruler. It must be a restless kind of stability , I think. The messages come constantly and from all around, and catching them is more about receptivity than reach
Bees were both a way to get physical, and out of that kind of metropolitan chatter head, and to be present. Under their influence, Jukes’ found space and time made for reflection and connection. Bee teaching! Friendships, and more are deepened, as the author found how her own connections to the bees were enabling her to open up more to human connections. Bee meditations!
Through this experience of beekeeping, of learning about and listening tot the colony, I might have called something up – might have begun to articulate and name a capacity I was missing, a connection I needed…..A particular kind of sensitivity, a quality of attention which is…almost like a substance itself……What to do with a feeling like that – which is not rational, and doesn’t fit with the usual categories – except to notice it silently and with a sideways grin as it becomes part of my day-to-day
To sum up, far more beautifully, something about bee-teaching, than I can conceptualise, is this lovely quote from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
I received this as a digital review copy, via Net Galley, and absolutely recommend it. Maybe if we all kept bees we might learn how to cooperate with each other …at times, it seems as if human beings are (at least on the world stage) more interested in taking hornets as role models!
A Honeybee heart has five openings UK
A Honeybee heart has five openings USA
MarinaSofia said:
You’re the second one to recommend this one to me. An artist friend who keeps bees mentioned it just last week. Since I am super-interested in bees, this sounds like the book for me!
Lady Fancifull said:
As it is a wondrous book I think, even if a reader was not drawn to bees, it will be sure fire delight to the lover of bees!
MarinaSofia said:
Alas, alas, I had to order it! You are not helping with my financially precarious situation.
JacquiWine said:
This does sound truly wonderful. I’m going to recommend it to a friend from my book group who started taking care of bees as part of a learning activity. (He is teacher at a London-based school.) At our last meet-up, he gave each of us a little pot of honey from this year’s harvest. Needless to say, it was absolutely delicious!
Lady Fancifull said:
I reckon giving your own or your bees’ own honey must make the giver feel even more proud and blessed to give, than presenting your baking as gifts to lucky recipients
kaggsysbookishramblings said:
I’m attracted to the world of bees, though I struggle with beekeeping because it doesn’t quite fit with my vegan outlook. Nevertheless this does sound quite lovely!
Lady Fancifull said:
It is enchanting, delightful and uplifting
Cathy746books said:
This sounds beautiful. I love how she talks about the ‘quality of attention’.
Lady Fancifull said:
it IS beautiful Cathy. Satisfying for its writing AND for its ‘about’. And, yes indeed, her journey TO that particular quality of attention was wonderful. She was learning so much FROM the bees, not just about them
FictionFan said:
Lovely review of what sounds like a lovely book! The Kew Garden hive looks… hmm! I’m not quite sure. Have you seen it in real life?
Lady Fancifull said:
Oh, the Hive is GLORIOUS. I have indeed seen it in real – twice, going back to Kew primarily because i wanted to hive again! The challenge is that it is really best experienced almost empty. The combination of the lights and the soundscape, is very heady, and I found myself (hopefully not embarrassing the friend I was with too much) having to close my eyes and sway and dance mid-Hive. It is quite mesmeric. The second time I went alone (so as not to embarrass anyone) but unfortunately I coincided with several parties of primary school children, so it was ME feeling too embarrassed and exposed to do my bee dance. Sometime, I’ll go again, and find it empty A wet day would be good, but the floor might be slippy, so it wouldn’t surprise me if elf and safety didn’t out of bound it on such a day
FictionFan said:
I thought from the video it looked like one of those things you probably need to experience rather than simply look at. Haha – I hope you get the opportunity to do your bee dance again. Maybe the elf will run away from boring old safety and dance with you…
madamebibilophile said:
How lovely! I do like bees. Living in London I don’t have a garden but I have a rusty fire escape crammed with as many plants as I’m allowed, and visits from bees always bring such joy.
Lady Fancifull said:
It is funny – buzzing wasps have such a different energy, don’t they, than the lovely bees!
Christine said:
I’ve just put this book on hold at the library after your engaging review, LF. I did enjoy Hawk, and I do like a well written book which reminds us to pause and connect with self and the world. The bee keeping info will be an extra pleasure. I’d love to experience the Kew Hive; like you, I like to encounter private moments to just be and absorb when I’m in special places.
Lady Fancifull said:
I’m almost sure you will adore this, Christine. It is a book which made me feel expanded and uplifted. Not to mention appreciate that emptier Kew Hive experience even more! And very grateful to all bees, so busily gathering nectar and keeping life going through spreading seed from flower to flower. Precious little buzzers!