Graphic novel about life inside a beehive. Funny that I’ve had Clan Apis on my TBR for over a decade, wanted to read it someday but my library didn’t have a copy. Or so I thought. I picked this one up browsing, delighted to find a graphic novel from a bee’s perspective- and realized pretty quick it was the same book! Just republished with a different title. The cover makes this one look kind of cute and cheerful, but it’s not. The main character cracks a lot of jokes and pesters other characters as she tries to figure out how to fit into hive life- she doesn’t always want to face changes, or new duties, but eventually she does what every bee must do. And witnesses plenty of deaths along the way, as the bees defend their hive against thieves and invaders, face predators and the elements.
The main bee is Nyuki, at first just a larva in her brood cell, asking tons of questions. She undergoes metamorphosis and then works inside the hive, still posing many questions to her older sisters around her. She has an early experience outside the hive before she’s ready- not yet a forager- and it’s terrifying. So many risks and dangers. Then reluctant to become a forager herself. But is swept up by the excitement when the hive population grows too big and a swarm forms. And eventually does become a forager, proud of her hard work, finding her favorite flowers and meeting other insects out there. She nurtures younger bees inside the hive in her turn, and determines to do her utmost to make her life’s effort benefit the community as a whole. There’s a ton of scientific information in here, mostly about bees but also some other relevant topics. I learned plenty that I didn’t know before, and found it all fascinating. Especially things like what motivates the hive to swarm, and how the bees decide to let some brood cells support new queens. I also didn’t know that while most bees perform certain tasks in a predictable order until spending the end of their lives foraging, there is a wide variety of ages at which they switch tasks, and some bees stay in the same job for their whole life (52 days). I didn’t know that for a bee, walking or crawling costs far more energy than flying. To me, flying with the wings beating so fast looks like more effort, but I guess it’s very efficient and maybe the leg muscles are weaker. I liked that all the names for bees in the story mean ‘bee’ in other languages. The creation myth, from the bees’ perspective, involved a great flower exploding pollen through space- kind of odd, but fitting I suppose. And of course, the bees in this story all talk- to each other, to other insects- even to flowers. But I don’t mind a talking animal story. It was entertaining and fun altogether.
Borrowed from the public library.
