“He’s Theodore, my love. He looks just like you.”

“Okay,” he said. “Theodore. I’ve always wanted a son.”

I was just so glad I’d have two Teds to love. What could be better? We brought him home and laid him in his bassinet and I thought my heart would burst from all the love I felt for my little Ted. I stared at him for days on end and walked around in a fog of joy.

I could go on with this story forever. You know it wouldn’t be hard. There will always be shenanigans to entertain you from the islanders like Leslie, Momma, Suz, well, all of us, and our friends, too. That’s what it is to live in the Lowcountry. The colors are a little brighter. The air is a little sweeter. Jokes are funnier, love runs deeper, and life overall is richer. But I have a baby to feed and a gorgeous husband who’ll be wanting dinner, too. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be back another time. Remember Tolstoy? He said something pretty clever. He said, “One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care.” Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we took that tiny bit of advice? The hive has many lessons to teach us. This was only one of them.

Acknowledgments

There was an unusual amount of enthusiasm for this book from the very beginning. Many people gave me their thoughts and wisdom to make Queen Bee, we all hope, worthy of your time. The world around me is suddenly filled with beekeepers, honey bee keepers to be exact, all of them filled with hope that Queen Bee will gently enlighten and inform my readers on the importance of honey bees to our food supply and the beauty of the natural world while I’m telling you a story about human frailty and cowardice confronted with unstoppable and sometimes very unlikely love and devotion.

I began my research with BUZZ—The Nature and Necessity of Bees, a recent work of nonfiction authored by Thor Hanson. I bought a copy and was given two more. If your curiosity leads you to only read one book on the subject of honey bees, it has to be this one. I read it in two days, took copious notes, and quickly came to understand that honey bees have much to teach humanity. In fact, a lot more than I thought.