Book Review
14 days ago a supporter of our foundation concordia NATURA with the novel "History of Bees" by Maja Lunde. From the first to page 508 the book captivated me. It's a good thing that so many holidays fell during this time, giving room for reading time.
I'm fascinated by the telling of three - seemingly - very different stories, set in very different times on three different continents to boot.
William, a biologist and seed merchant in England lives in the mid-19th century. In his passion as a researcher, with a focus on the study of insects, he finds himself failing. His seed business, anything but his passion, is equally down.
But then he gets the idea to develop a new, bee-friendly prey. The story of William describes the ups and downs of this creation and the sustainability, which has a very decisive impact on the history of mankind long after his invention.
The reader experiences George in 2007, in the fulfillment of his passion, as a beekeeper in the USA. He attaches great importance to the species-appropriate husbandry of bees and is one of the first beekeepers who switched to organic management of the apiary. His goal is to pass the farm on to his son in the third generation, which is not easy. But then the unthinkable happens: the bees are suddenly gone. The issue also quickly has a name: CCD - Colony Collapse Disorder - and spreads worldwide. Here the book describes a phenomenon under which also currently the bees and thus many beekeepers suffer all over the world. The bees are not lying dead in the hive and have no visible damage; but suddenly, from one day to the next, the entire colony has disappeared. Until today it is scientifically not precisely researched by what CCD is triggered. The massive use of pesticides, glyphosate, dressed seeds, the monoculture deserts and the increasingly dense urbanization are assumed to be the cause.
The third, of the all interwoven stories, tells of Tao and is set in China in 2098. CCD has long since banished bees from our world, triggering catastrophic effects on the entire economic cycle and humanity. It is not recovering from the collapse that shook the world in the 1930s. Tao is one of millions of workers who now pollinate fruit trees artificially, by human hands. On one of her few days off, her world comes crashing down. Her young son Wei-Wen suddenly collapses during an outing and finds himself in an acutely life-threatening situation. What does this story have to do with the bees? The reader will find out in the course of the story. In the same way, he will read the close interweaving of all three stories.
"The story of the bees" is in isolation a book that affects, that saddens. But precisely because of this, it is a very concrete appeal to all of us to actively engage ourselves for the health of bees and the protection of nature and the landscape. The concordiaNATURA foundation makes a contribution to this. It is not yet 2037 and CCD is not yet widespread. "The story of the bees" also gives hope in this sense, hope for a "better world". More and more people are waking up and realizing that "business as usual" is not the solution, but the cause of our problems. Let's work together towards the goal of preserving bee health and thus the health and livelihood of humanity.
I wish you much inspiration while reading,
Klaus Heinzel
"The story of the bees"
Maja Lunde
Verlagsgruppe Random House FSC
btb-Verlag
ISBN 978-3-442-75684-1