As her grandpa showed her the sacrifices bees make for their colony and the bonds they form with their keeper, Meredith discovered what family really means.Ī rich and lyrical coming-of-age story, combined with spellbinding nature writing, The Honey Bus is the extraordinary story of a girl who journeyed into the hive - and found herself. The Honey Bus: A Girl Raised by Bees is a memoir about a girl's journey into the heart of a beehive to find herself.įamily duty. Her mother disappeared into herself.īut when Meredith discovered the rusted old bus where her grandpa kept bees, her world changed forever.įamily duty. Her father left for the other side of the country. When she was five years old, Meredith May was abandoned by both parents. Part memoir, part beekeeping odyssey, The Honey Bus is an unforgettable story about finding home in the most unusual of places, and how a tiny, little-understood insect could save a life.The Honey Bus: A Girl Raised by Bees is a memoir about a girl's journey into the heart of a beehive to find herself. The bees became a guiding force in May’s life, teaching her about family and community, loyalty and survival and the unequivocal relationship between a mother and her child. It was during this pivotal time in May’s childhood that she learned to take care of herself, forged an unbreakable bond with her grandfather and opened her eyes to the magic and wisdom of nature. Her mother had receded into a volatile cycle of neurosis and despair and spent most days locked away in the bedroom. May turned to her grandfather and the art of beekeeping as an escape from her troubled reality. That first close encounter was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees.

She was five years old, her parents had recently split and suddenly she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard. Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm. An extraordinary story of a girl, her grandfather and one of nature’s most mysterious and beguiling creatures: the honeybee.

The honey bus book