Listening To The Mood Of The Hive


Listening To The Mood Of The Hive


A single empty yellow chair sits next to Heather Swan’s tall, buzzing beehive in her backyard in Madison. Swan keeps it there to sit next to the bees — some 60,000 insects — and talk with them. She tells the bees when something important is going to happen, and on a recent day she whispered the news that a few radio journalists would be coming to visit. Sometimes she puts her ear to the hive to hear how the bees are doing, to get a sense of their mood.

Swan, who teaches environmental literature and writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has combined her love of bees, writing and art in the book, "Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories From the Field." The layout of the book is striking, with honey-colored pages alternating with bee-related artwork, like Sibylle Peretti’s St. Francis, of a child sitting on a magical-looking mound of honeycomb....

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- - Volume: 6 - WEEK: 32 Date: 8/6/2018 8:46:46 AM -