Colony Collapse Disorder, ubiquitous pesticide use, industrial agriculture, habitat reductionthese are just a few of the issues causing unprecedented trauma in honeybee populations worldwide. In this artfully illustrated book, Heather Swan embarks on a narrative voyage to discover solutions toand understand the sources ofthe plight of honeybees.
Through a lyrical combination of creative nonfiction and visual imagery, Where Honeybees Thrive tells the stories of the beekeepers, farmers, artists, entomologists, ecologists, and other advocates working to stem the damage and reverse course for this critical pollinator. Using her own quest for understanding as a starting point, Swan highlights the innovative projects and strategies these groups employ. Her mosaic approach to engaging with the environment not only reveals the incredibly complex political ecology in which bees livewhich includes human and nonhuman actors alikebut also suggests ways of comprehending and tackling a host of other conflicts between postindustrial society and the natural world. Each chapter closes with an illustrative full-color gallery of bee-related artwork.
A luminous journey from the worlds of honey producers, urban farmers, and mead makers of the United States to those of beekeepers of Sichuan, China, and researchers in southern Africa, Where Honeybees Thrive traces the global web of efforts to secure a sustainable future for honeybeesand ourselves.
34 color illustrations
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Bees as Indicator Species
1 Honey Business
Gallery 1 Child Mind: The Art of Sibylle Peretti
2 Searching for the Bees of Guangxi and Sichuan
Gallery 2 The Microscopic Sublime: The Art of Rose-Lynn Fisher
3 Bullroarers, Elephants, and Honeybees
Gallery 3Making Sense of Bees: The Art of Kim Gurney
4 Killing Bees to Save Them: The Heartbreak of Experimental Design
Gallery 4 Mourning the Dead: The Art of Sarah Hatton
5 The Farmer, the Blueberry, and the Bee: An Unusual Love Triangle
Gallery 5 Techno Bees: The Art of Elizabeth Goluch
6 For the Love of Lawns
Gallery 6 Trespass: The Art of Aganetha Dyck
7 Guard Bee: Storying Resilience
Gallery 7 The Art of Resistance: The Beehive Design Collective
8 A Different Kind of Buzz: Mirth as a Form of Resistance
Gallery 8 Bee Renaissance: The Art of Lea Bradovich
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Credits
“I suggest you kick back with a glass of mead as you savor the storytelling of master beekeeper and bee lover Heather Swan. This is a unique and worthwhile book, a new twist on honey bees that you are not likely to find anywhere else.”
—Stephen Buchmann, The Quarterly Review of Biology
