Paull began studying bees in honor of a beekeeper friend who passed away. The Queen is the only bee allowed to bear children, and Flora must decide whether to follow her own maternal instincts or sacrifice everything for the colony. Flora’s commitment to the hive is put to the test when she lays an egg, the ultimate sin against the Holy Mother Queen bee. Indeed, no single bee is indispensible when the security of the hive depends on conformity. The close third person point of view allows the reader to work alongside Flora and experience the intricate system of rewards and punishments that foster cohesion of the hive.ĭespite Flora’s hard work, her caste always trumps her contributions. Whereas others of her caste may only clean, Flora’s extraordinary strength and special skills earn her the right to work with bees of higher castes in the nursery and out foraging for nectar and pollen. Large and deformed, she’s slated to be euthanized, but a priestess bee saves her for her own nefarious purposes. The protagonist is Flora 717, born to the lowly sanitation caste in an orchard hive. The novel has been described as The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games, and with its plucky young heroine from the bottom caste of a rigidly hierarchical society defying a fertility-based authoritarian regime, that description rings true. Simply put, Laline Paull’s The Bees is Game of Thrones in a hive - with flowers. Sex, intrigue, battles, betrayals, blood, death - and flowers.
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