The Truth About Bees

I’m embarrassed to admit how little I knew about bees before I started my newest National Park mystery. I could conjure a honey bee and a bumble bee, hives, and combs dripping with yummy honey. My husband raised bees when he was young, so he’s described the intricacies of farming honey to me. Scratch-the surface knowledge, I discovered.

You should know that my next novel takes place in Pinnacles National Park, named for soaring rock structures, located west of Soledad, California. It’s a small park, but mighty, replete with big California Condors (struggling to make a comeback from extinction), and more species of bees buzzing around than most places in the world.

Four hundred? Maybe up to eight hundred? Entomologists aren’t sure how many species are hunting for pollen in Pinnacles. But they are sure that eighty to ninety percent of bee species are NOT hive bees. Instead, the majority of bees are solitary, uniting to mate, but otherwise not social at all. When they nest, they burrow in the ground or in the crevices of trees. There’s even a kind of bee with very un-bumblebee behavior. This one lays its eggs in another bee’s nest so the pollen gathered there by a hardworking mother, feeds the foster bee larvae. Yet another bee lays eggs in another bee’s nest, which hatch and eat the resident larvae. Below is a picture of an antisocial bee:

There goes our stereotyped view that all bees are collaborative creatures busily making honey for their growing broods (and people).

In my novel, the bees suffer a die-off that alarms the world. Our fearless Ranger, Sable Chisholm must discover the reason for so many deaths before crops that depend on the insect are destroyed, as well.

Get ready for a gripping novel, with humans, condors, and bees under siege. With almost a third of the novel completed, this author is horrified about the carnage and hopeful Sable will save the victims in Pinnacle National Park!