Each chapter of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees begins with an epigraph, a few lines taken from various books about bees. These are used for many reasons; to connect each chapter with the major motif of bees, to provide insights in to the events of each chapter, and to accentuate the ideas about women and mothers that resonate throughout the entire story. Chapter four begins by saying that “’Honeybees are social insects and live in colonies. Each colony is a family unit, comprising a single, egg-laying female or queen and her many sterile daughters called workers. The workers cooperate in the food-gathering, nest-building and rearing the offspring.…
Michael Heile Nelson 3 English 11 Honors April 29 2016 Honeybee Population Crisis Bees are very crucial to our society. They pollinate over $14 billion worth of crops each year (Ballaro and Warhol). With that amount of money you could buy almost 15 new Viking stadiums each year. They are so valuable to our society and if the bee population goes down, the human population will soon follow. Although many people are unaware of the shrinking bee population, scientific evidence has proven it to be a major problem.…
"The Case of the Poor Man's Bees" In “The Case of the Poor Man’s Bees,” a rich man (John) and a poor beekeeper (myself) are neighbors having adjacent gardens. John argues that my bees are harming his flowers while they are feeding on them. He does not see the bees as a source of pollination and a beneficial source for his plants. As a result of, he asked me to move my bees so that they would stop feeding on his flowers. I insisted that the bees were simply pollinating the flowers and therefore, refused to move them.…
Seeley (2010) immediately makes us readers mindful of the many choices honeybee’s are required to make throughout their daily lives in order for their democracy to unfold. These honeybee’s must decide, as a collective, when it is necessary to build more honeycomb, where and when to dispatch foragers, and most crucially, the site on which they are going to build their new home. This decision of where to build their new home is crucial to the hives all-around survival and thus the decision made must be a good one. To combat the vast importance of such a decision, the honeybee’s resort to a cooperative form of…
Savannas are bumpy grasslands with distant shrubs and trees. They are normally in a warm climate year round, with only two seasons, very long and dry season and the wet season. Roughly the temperature stays above 70 degrees F all year. This is a generic description of a generic savanna, but the Oregon Oak Savanna in Oregon is no where near generic. The Oregon Oak Savanna is home to many plants and animals that are massively influential on the human race.…
The Plight of the Honeybee by Bryan Wals is a prior warning to all concerned parties about the ecosystem balance and the importance of honeybees to our lives. It profoundly talks about a time without bees and the grand prize us as the human race shall pay we do not get to the root of the killers of the honeybee. The speaker’s attitude towards his subject is compassionate where he is showing concern about the disappearing of bees whose numbers are reducing at an alarming rate. The unseen significance of the western honey bees which contribute to the vast pollination that takes place in rich crop fields.…
Bees and Butterflies: An Analysis Microaggressions have become a day to day experience for many people around the globe. It seems that only a select number of situations are broadcasted for millions to observe through books, movies, tv shows, news. While the rest are lost in a sea of hundreds of faces. There are many wonderful sources of clarity that bring light to these experiences and situations. One of the most inspiring in my opinion is the book Citizen by Claudia Rankine.…
In Science magazine, Jonas Geldmann and Juan P. González-Varo wrote a piece talking about the loss of western honey bees. It is done by compiling evidence performed by tests and other articles on the subject. They bring attention how society has grown to know that the loss of bees, or natural pollinators, has been an epidemic. They reference this to bring the attention that, “pollinators for global food security; ~75% of all globally important crops depend to some degree on pollination.” While this is true, they mention the importance because the honey bees are not the bees we should be worrying about.…
The researcher's goal was to create a cross-bred bee that would be productive under tropical conditions. However, 26 swarms, including queens, were accidentally released into the wild. The bees began breeding with native honeybees, and their descendants quickly expanded…
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a novel takes place in 1964 down in South Carolina. A teenage white girl, Lily Owens, and the black woman who raised her, Rosaleen, broke out of jail and fled to Tiburon, South Carolina to escape her past. Throughout the book there are events that shape her: Lily lying about her identity, when she finds out about her mother, and when her father finds Lily. Lily and Rosaleen arrive in Tiburon after running from the police because of a situation that took place back in their hometown. As soon as they arrive, they find the pink house where three sisters live: August, May and June.…
With the constant buzz across the country from phones and technology we sometimes miss the more important buzzes. The honey bee population in the United States has been declining at an alarming rate over the past decade. The United States should take action to help preserve the honey bee so that there doesn’t end up being a nationwide crop failure. Though many citizens don’t believe that the honey bee crisis will affect them, the reality may leave sting. With the decrease in honey bees and no one taking action, soon crops will fail and large amounts of our food sources will diminish.…
The honey bee is a major pollinator of many of our food crops. For instance, almonds, apples, avocados, blueberries, cantaloupes, cherries, cranberries, cucumbers, sunflowers, watermelon and many other crops all rely on honey bees for pollination. This shows that bees are insects that are far more important in our society than what humans give them credit…
As depicted in The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and…
As stated previously, African honey bees were more aggressive in nature than the European honey bees. Because of this trait, the African honey bees were able to effectively ward off the presence of small hive beetles, especially in strong colonies. In the weaker honey bee colonies in Africa, the beetles had a better chance of dominating, but it was very unlikely. In places where there are numerous European honey bee colonies, the small hive beetles are able to persevere in both strong and weak colonies. Reports have further illustrated that the…
Extensions of the Honey Bees Honeybees help produce 35% of all food in the world and have been around for millions of years. Yet, in recent decades, the honeybee population has been decreasing dramatically. On average a beekeeper will report 20% of annual losses, up to 90% on some occasions. Researchers have found that several factors have been causing the decrease in the honeybee population; a loss of habitat, introduction of new chemicals into the ecosystem, increase in the hive size and the rapid spread of diseases. Loss of Habitat…