Secret Life of Bees: Honey Bees and the Boatwrights

By Jake Reinartz5th hour English 11C

Hoffman

IntroductionIn the Secret Life Of Bees, the story is told from a first person perspective by Lily Owens. The story takes place during the civil rights era, so there is high black and white tension.She ends up on a bee farm after leaving her home town.

She was tired of living in a house with her neglectful father and dealing with a town full of racial hatred .So after busting her friend Rosaleen out of police custody, they headed for Tiburon, South Carolina. In hopes of finding out about some of her clouded past.Upon reaching Tiburon, she is told to go to the house of the Boatwrights.When she arrives, she meets August Boatwright and is taken in by her and her family.

Introduction• As Lily works on the bee farm she is taught the trick of the trade

(beekeeping). She learns about their behavior and their lifestyle.• This understanding is how we, as readers, can relate their behavior to the

Boatwright sisters. • Through the Bees.

The Boatwright Family.

• In the Boatwright family there are three sisters.• There names are May, June and August.• May is the youngest. Followed by June and August.• The sister live on the property alone and occasionally

request assistance unless needed.• One of those helpers being Zack Boatwright (their

nephew).

Bees

• Bees are related to the sisters so many ways.• First off in the book, you learn about bee

behavior and what it is like in a hive.• Just like the sisters, bees are almost all female

which consist of: one queen, many female drones and a few male drones (used only for mating).

Bees

• The females do all the work in the colony.• The bees have many specific jobs which can

be from gathering food to protecting their queen.

• The jobs a bee has are so complicated that they don’t always have a long lifespan.

Bees

• Bees have a secret life. You don’t always know what really goes on in a hive. Most people would say they collect honey, or they just want to sting you. But it’s a lot more complicated than that.

• Each of the Boatwright sisters represent bees in many ways. From their daily tasks to their house lifestyle, they are very similar to bees in personality.

Reputation as bees

• As you know, bees are not well liked in our society. We tend to have a hatred or fear of them with out knowing what they truly are like, or what there lives are like. and until you understand them, they will always remain disliked or hated.

• The only thing are society is truly thankful is the fact that the bees make a natural products that make are lives better.

Black family in the south

• Well very much like bees, the sisters are discriminated against for being black in a repressive southern state.

• But they are kept at peace mainly because of Augusts honey business.

• Their lives are kept alone, but still un-trusted by society because, just like the bees, they can’t change who they are.

• Even if they haven’t “stung” anyone yet, they won’t ever be thought of differently because, just like society, their reputation as African-Americans will never change the way they are thought of.

May

• May Boatwright is complicated person, but sweet. She spends her days caring for the house and cooking.

• She had a twin named April committed suicide as a young girl. After this May became very emotionally disturbed.

• To cope with this problem, she goes to a wailing wall where she releases her pain into the wall and is free from it for good.

May and the bees• Bee behavior is very tiring and exhausting. A bee will sometimes work

itself to death. With all the responsibilities a bee has, it is why they have such a short life span. It was also told in one the epigraphs in the novel that without communication with her sisters, a bee will die. Which is what happened with May.

• Her sisters had not told her about Zach being arrested, so when May found out she had gone so far off the edge, she couldn’t continue on living.

• With so much emotional stress and discomfort, bees die very often in a hive. May has that stress as well. She is so weighted down with the emotional problems of the world that she has a hard time staying alive.

• And after the pain and stress becomes too great, her life ceases to exist. Just like the bees.

May and the bees

• But even though bees die often, they have been dedicating lives to the hive.

• May had died, but she was a always a great house keeper and person to live with.

June

• June is very intelligent women, but is hostile toward white people because of Augusts affiliation with them as a nanny.

• She enjoy teaching and playing her cello. She has a relationship with her boyfriend Neil.

• He constantly wants to marry her, but she refuses.• June is a complicated women, but nice underneath

her hard appearance.

June and the bees

• Bees are a very intelligent species. They have methods of structure and math like no other.

• They live isolated, fearing their male bonding will disrupt the life with their sister bees.

• Bees also have been known to be worshiped by ancient races. They believed that placing symbols on their tombs meant a safe passage into the afterlife. Bees have been thought of as life and death and the guardians of the dead.

June and the bees

• June is without a doubt a gifted women.• June is so worked up in her family life that she

can’t seemed to want to marry Neil. She has no reason to speak of and Neil is persistent in his effort to marry her. But no matter how hard he tries ,like a bee, she is stubborn towards the thought of marriage.

June and the bees

• June is a gifted cello player. She plays at funerals to guide the spirits to the afterlife. Her cello music is so deep and moving, it feels like you one with the spirits and can communicate with them.

• Her music symbolizes the bee worship in ancient times. Just like their symbolism, her music also guides the spirits and sends to a better place after death.

Zack

• Zack is a young boy who works on the bee farm with his Aunts.

• He is a promising young student who dreams of one day becoming a lawyer.

• He is a very smart and fun loving person. But with the racism in the south, he tries his best to avoid any fighting or hatred against southern white racists.

Zack and the bees

• Bees are very ill tempered and angry when threatened. They fight back by stinging. The sting hurts a little, but human lives. As a result of the stinging, the bee dies.

• Blacks were always mistreated during the 50’s and 60’s. Blacks would want to fight back after a while, but knew it would end up bad. Because even if the whites were to blame, black people always looked bad in the end.

Zack and the bees• Zack is off one day near a movie theater when angry white racists are

near. Him and his friends weren’t thinking when they decided to taunt them and chuck a bottle at one their faces. As a result, the white men surround them and they go to jail.

• Zack represents the struggle the bees face as weaker beings, and he also represents the ill temperedness of the bees. He shows in the novel that he is always discriminated against, but can’t fight back, and when he does his life is endangered.

• Zack and bees alike are not very different, they are both thought of badly and are easily angered when threatened. But the sad truth is , the violence on the their part will end up badly.

August

• August is a woman who was a nanny for a white family growing up, until she became a beekeeper.

• She is a very motherly figure and is kind, compassionate and courteous.

• She spends her day living with her sisters in her home in Tiburon South Carolina.

August and the Bees

• August is a very important person in this novel. She opens up the readers mind to explore the world of bees. Through telling her stories and beekeeping secrets to Lily, the reader has better understanding about bees.

• If August could be a bee, she would be the Queen because of her generous attitude.

August and the Bees

• A queen is described as easy to recognize from all the other bees. This is true in Augusts case because she is the motherly and genuine hearted woman of the Boatwright family.

• “A queen is found by first locating her circle of attendants”. This is a quote from one of the epigraphs in the novel. It shows that in finding her sisters, you can always find August.

• A queen can give a special substance that can only be received by direct contact from the queen. This applies to August because as a queenly figure, she too has a substance that others receive from her directly. This substance is Honey.

August and the Bees

• In the Novel, August represents motherliness, kindness, and truthfulness.

• In many ways is August the perfect role model for young women especially, but to all other people too.

The end

• This concludes the presentation of the Secret Life of Bees, and how bees and the Boatwright sisters are alike and how they relate.