Featured Story

Since ancient Egyptian times, bees were thought to “bring messages from ancestors.” Thus, the practice of telling the bees when there was a death in the family was important. Grieving her daughter, Emily Polk, writer and teacher, sought to learn from bees. She engages with scientists and beekeepers for answers to questions such as: Do bees have emotions? How do they respond to death? She is overwhelmed to find there is one “undertaker bee” whose role is to retrieve the bodies of dead bees and carry them away from the hive. She learns that scientists can measure changes in physiology, cognition, and behavior when bees are under stress. She relates the miraculous way bees find nectar amid seemingly impossible conditions and environmental threats. And from Khalid, who is imbued with five generations of bee reverence and who seems to speak for the bees, she learns, “Some people will give up. But the bees don’t give up.” “I learned from them to be generous. The bees give us honey and they never ask for anything in return.”