Excellent question. The quotes that introduce each chapter
take the form of non-fiction quotes relating to the scientific study of bees and their
lives. Bees are of course an ever-present reality in the novel, but what is interesting
is how the quotes relate bees and their activity to the lives of the characters. For
example, the quote introducing Chapter Eight refers to the necessity of bees having
companionship and how honeybees "soon die" if they are isolated from other bees and lack
companionship and support. This chapter includes Lily's first introduction to the bees
and the way that August tells her to "send them love."
The
resulting swarm of bees that crowd around Lily triggers a kind of spiritual reverie. As
she reflects back on it, note how Lily thinks about what
happens:
I
knew that these bees were not a plague at all. It felt like the queen's attendants were
out her in a frenzy of love, caressing me in a thousand places. Look whose here, it's
Lily. She is so weary and lost. Come on, bee sisters. I was the stamen in the middle of
a twirling flower. The center of all their
comforting.
Lily, in spite of
her attempts to run away from companionship, is forced to realise that she needs the
same companionship and support that bees themselves need, and finds it in this chapter
through a mystical union with the bees, just as she is finding it in a more practical
nature through her friendship with August and the love that August shows her. Thus we
can see from this example that the quotes that begin each chapter implicitly relate to
the action of that chapter and the characters in it.
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