Changes

|title=Queen of the Sun

|reviewer=Andy Lancaster

|genre=Popular Science

|borrow=Yes

|isbn=978-1905570348

|pages=160

|publisher=Clairview Books

|date=November 2011

|summary=Sometimes you come across books that you wish you had read many years ago, and this study of 'what the bees are telling us' is one such book. A collection of essays, and beautiful images, looking at different aspects of bees and beekeeping in the contemporary world, this warns, reveals, astounds and conveys the essence of beekeeping, while at the same time revealing much more, the ways in which we can understand our own place in the ecosystem.

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I kept bees for 5 or 6 years and read many books about the subject, all of the 'how to..' or 'the science of… variety. But this book is a revelation as it genuinely tries to celebrate bees, capturing the real 'feel' of beekeeping - I wish I had come across this much sooner. For Siegel and Betz have collected a series of short articles, poems and essays not about the technique and science of the craft, but about the purpose and 'soul' behind it.

So this account captures some of the transcendent joy that is keeping bees, but contrasts this strongly with the major case common to all the writers in this anthology, that treating agriculture as a commodity, turning bees into mere honey producers as opposed to living, elegant colonies of life and living beings is a sure way in the end to court disaster.

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[[Category: Taggart Siegel]]

[[Category:Jon Betz]]