An acclaimed author has said beekeeping helped her to “be a better person.”
Pulitzer Prize nominee Meredith May got into apiculture at the age of six.
Speaking about what honeybees mean to her, she said: “They were my guardians during a rough patch in my life.”
Meredith – whose children’s picture book “My Hive” is due to be released next year – explained: “When my grandfather became too frail to continue beekeeping, I felt an irrepressible urge to beekeep again.”
She added: “I convinced my bosses at the San Francisco Chronicle to let me put beehives on the company roof. When I held bees again, after 30 years, I felt the vibration of their wings zing through my body, and it was so familiar, so personal, that I wept. My coworkers thought I was having a meltdown.”
Meredith emphasised: “They were my guardians during a rough patch in my life.”
The journalist and novelist told the Washington Post: “Beekeeping is a really meditative practice. You have to move slowly when you’re doing it, so you don’t get stung and so that you don’t upset the bees. It’s very quiet, and you typically do it alone. And bees are just fascinating.”
Reflecting on her beekeeping beginnings, Meredith said: “My grandfather, shortly before his death, asked me to take care of his last hive. I think he was really asking me to step into his shoes. I feel him with me when I am with the bees, and it brings me great peace.
“Also, I feel an obligation to protect the bees, because they protected me when I was vulnerable. And then privately, beekeeping is a little badass and makes for fun stories at dinner parties.”
On her website, the renowned writer urges garden owners to plant bee-friendly flowers and abstain from using chemical substances.
Bees are indispensable pollinators. Their activity is of great importance for local ecosystems and agricultural food production.
The annual global economic impact of honeybees and the numerous other pollinating insects that exist in the world reportedly exceeds USD 100 billion (EUR 92 billion, GBP 79 billion).
