Courtesy of Beaverdale Books

Reviewed by Catherine Rihm

By Hannah Nordhaus

Harper Perennial

05/24/2011

$14.99

269 pp

Several years ago, honeybees were propelled to the media spotlight as they began to disappear under the newly coined Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). It was at this time that many first learned the vital role bees play in providing us with a large percentage of the fruits, vegetables and almonds that we consume. This new threat to the bees' health and existence translated to a significant and real threat to our food supply.

In Hannah Nordhaus's new book, "The Beekeeper's Lament," she presents a complex portrait of the current world of bees and their keepers. She concentrates on one of the nation's biggest commercial beekeepers, John Miller, chronicling the bee culture, biology and history as we follow his migratory outfit. He uses trucks to transport thousands of hives of bees across the nation in order to pollinate crops and produce honey.

Along the way, Miller struggles, like every beekeeper with one backyard hive or 15,000, to keep his bees healthy and alive. "In the last half decade," Nordhaus writes, "a third of the national bee herd… has died each year," and CCD is only one aspect of blame — multiple stressors afflict the bees and threaten their hives, from mites and pesticides to monoculture and poor nutrition.

With effortless, heartfelt storytelling, fascinating details and plenty of humor, Nordhaus conveys both an engaging portrait of Miller and an accurate account of the remarkable but grim state of beekeeping today. CV