An inspiring, up-close portrait of tending to a honeybee hive—a year of living dangerously—watching and capturing the wondrous, complex universe of honeybees and learning an altogether different way of being in the world.“As strange, beautiful, and unexpected, as precise and exquisite in its movings as bees in a hive. I loved it.”–Helen Macdonald, author of H Is for Hawk A Honeybee Heart Has … Hawk
A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings begins as the author is entering her thirties and feeling disconnected in her life. Uneasy about her future and struggling to settle into her new house in Oxford with its own small garden, she is brought back to a time of accompanying a friend in London—a beekeeper—on his hive visits. And as a gesture of good fortune for her new life, she is given a colony of honeybees. According to folklore, a colony, freely given, brings good luck, and Helen Jules embarks on a rewarding, perilous journey of becoming a beekeeper.
Jukes writes about what it means to “keep” wild creatures; on how to live alongside beings whose laws and logic are so different from our own . . . She delves into the history of beekeeping and writes about discovering the ancient, haunting, sometimes disturbing relationship between keeper and bee, human and wild thing.
A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings is a book of observation, of the irrepressible wildness of these fascinating creatures, of the ways they seem to evade our categories each time we attempt to define them. Are they wild or domestic? Individual or collective? Is honey an animal product or is it plant-based? As the author’s colony grows, the questions that have, at first compelled her interest to fade away, and the inbetweenness, the unsettledness of honeybees call for a different kind of questioning, of consideration.
A subtle yet urgent mediation on uncertainty and hope, on solitude and friendship, on feelings of restlessness and on home; on how we might better know ourselves. A book that shows us how to be alert to the large and small creatures that flit between and among us and that urge us to learn from this vital force so necessary to be continuation of life on planet Earth.
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Helen’s story begins with a lot of stress and “head stuff” as she recounts numerous facts about bees and beekeeping. She is undergoing major life changes, with a recent move from Sussex to Oxford, starting a new job that has a permanent contract, and moving to a two up two down house with an overgrown garden, shared with her friend Becky.
However, Helen aspires to keeping bees, after a few years of learning from her friend Luke, who is an urban beekeeper.
It is time to get her own hive and bee colony.
Once her hive is in place and her bee colony arrives, she slowly moves into a more relaxed space, and opens her heart to the bees and to love…
As an aspiring beekeeper, I enjoyed following the author’s transformation which really resonates with the book title.
A very personal début in backyard beekeeping
As a beekeeper, I was keen to read this memoir of Helen Jukes’ first year keeping bees and I was not disappointed though occasionally surprised at what wasn’t mentioned. This is NOT a how-to book on beekeeping, nor was it meant to be. It is an up-close and personal account of one woman’s relationship with beekeeping and bees. How this is woven into her relationships with humans is a beautiful journey in self-discovery and connection. No spoilers here.
Despite her long experience helping an urban beekeeper, Helen Jukes is almost paralysed by anxiety at the thought of being totally responsible for her own hive. The reader follows both her (over) immersion in the theory and history of beekeeping and her anxiety about putting this into practice. I found the description of her emotions, fears, practical questions and decisions easy to relate to and very well described.
I was fascinated by all the history, myths and bee biology which is dropped lightly into the personal account. Some I knew from my own research and experience; some I didn’t. Details of hive construction were well-explained, even to non beekeepers, and I share Helen Jukes’ awe at the ‘bee-space’, that exact measurement of three-eights of an inch which allows a bee through and which has enabled humans to work with bees. Of course, I share that awe regarding everything bees do and make!
Apart from being an enjoyable memoir, this book asks some big questions about WHY we might want to ‘keep’ honey bees and what that means for us, as individuals, as a community and for the planet. These are important questions and it still shocks me – though I knew it already – how brutal humans have been in their ‘production’ of honey and scientific experiments. The feeling of wellbeing when you work with your bees and the joy of tasting honey from your own bees – all these moments are conveyed in prose that becomes more lyrical as the story progresses.
I was bemused that there’s no mention of the author getting stung (although she says she doesn’t want to be) or of using a smoker. I wanted to discuss with her some of the practices she describes but that’s what beekeepers do – we keep learning! So much about honeybees is still a mystery but if you would enjoy reading one person’s experience and philosophy of backyard beekeeping, in the context of history and conservation, you’ll love this book.