The Beekeeper's Lament
How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
“You’llnever think of bees, their keepers, or the fruits (and nuts) of their laborsthe same way again.” —Trevor Corson, author of The Secret Life of Lobsters
Award-winning journalist Hannah Nordhaus tells the remarkable story of John Miller, one of America’s foremost migratory beekeepers, and the myriad and mysterious epidemics threatening American honeybee populations. In luminous, razor-sharp prose, Nordhaus explores the vital role that honeybees play in American agribusiness, the maintenance of our food chain, and the very future of the nation. With an intimate focus and incisive reporting, in a book perfect for fans of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire,and John McPhee’s Oranges, Nordhaus’s stunning exposé illuminates one the most critical issues facing the world today,offering insight, information, and, ultimately, hope.
Why are America’s honey bees vanishing—and what does the answer reveal about our food supply?
Migratory Beekeeping: Follow veteran beekeeper John Miller as he crisscrosses the country, from California's almond orchards to the clover fields of North Dakota, in a race to keep his half-a-billion bees alive.The Varroa Mite: Discover the devastating impact of a tiny, bloodred parasite that has become one of the greatest threats to honey bees and the focus of a desperate scientific battle.Almond Pollination: Go inside the largest managed pollination event on Earth, where the survival of California's multi-billion-dollar almond industry depends entirely on the health of millions of visiting bees.Environmental Science: An unflinching look at the interconnected pressures—from pesticides to habitat loss—that have pushed a critical species to the brink, and what it means for our future.A Family Business: Experience the story of a four-generation beekeeping family, a true American dynasty fighting to adapt its legacy to a world that is increasingly hostile to the bees they love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this revelatory, bittersweet investigation into the state of commercial beekeeping in the 21st century, Nordhaus follows the migratory life of a commercial beekeeper, John Miller, as he trucks his bees between California and North Dakota, pollinating almond orchards, defending his territory of "bee yards" (flowering pastures), collecting honey, and, against all odds, keeping his bees and his business alive. It turns out that colony collapse disorder, which recently brought awareness of bees and their essential agricultural function to an oblivious public, is only the most recent of numerous threats to bee health, from 19th-century plagues of wax moth comb invasion to more recent infestations of tracheal and varroa mites that "killed nearly every single one of the continent's feral colonies, obliterating the wild bees that once did much of the work pollinating the nations crops and flowers." According to Nordhaus, hives survive now only with drugs administered by their keepers, who, in a profession where disaster is commonplace and profit elusive, are becoming nearly as exotic and endangered as their bees. Miller, smart, antisocial with humans, but tender toward bees and prone to writing ironic free-verse e-mails, keeps the narrative lively despite its often grim content.
