The Honey Bus (Hardcover, Edition)

Reviews

"My review" by Breakaway R. - 6 June 2019

Much more than just a memoir … After her parents’ divorce, Meredith, aged 5 and her brother Matthew, aged 2 went with their mother to live with their grandmother and her second husband in Big Sur in California. Here their mother abandoned her parenting duties and retired to her darkened bedroom from where she refused to come out, sinking deeper and deeper over the years into a black tunnel of depression and self-pity. Parenting duties were taken over by the grandmother, formidable, strict and unsmiling while protecting her daughter against all noise and disturbance and leaving the two bewildered children more or less to their own devices. Fortunately, their step-grandfather was a completely different proposition. A countryman and a hillbilly through and through, he was a self-employed plumber by trade and a fourth generation bee-keeper with an uncanny and intimate knowledge of honey bees, their lifestyle and language. He was only too happy to share his passion with a fascinated 5-year old girl. With her, he shared his countryman's wisdom and understanding of nature and of the circle of life. As she watched him working with the bees, he told her about their dedication, hard work, loyalty and co-operation for the benefit and survival of the whole. She was endlessly fascinated by the ordered workings bee colonies where every single bee knows her place and her job and is prepared to die in defence of the queen. This book is far more than a memoir. I defy any reader not to be in awe of the intricate workings of a bee colony. I never knew how many different jobs there were - nurse bees, guard bees, wax-producing bees, builder bees, pollen- and nectar-collecting bees and so on, and how each bee has an instinctive response to a threat to the whole. We, the human race, owe a huge debt of gratitude and respect to the humble honeybee whose hold on life is fragile and severely threatened - mainly because of our actions. The very least we owe them is to become aware of how just how much we depend on them for our very survival. In spite of her severely bipolar mother and an almost loveless childhood with minimal parenting, Meredith, hungry for knowledge and with a fascination for bees, is now an award-winning journalist and a fifth-generation bee-keeper. In this memoir, she writes candidly and movingly about her unconventional upbringing and how with the help of her step-grandfather and the bees she discovers all she needs to know about family life. I feel enriched for having read it, and in my opinion, it thoroughly deserves its five stars. Bennie Bookworm Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.