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Riley Watt
Mrs. Koon
English 5
22 September 2014
Quote Connections in The Secret Life of Bees
In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, the author provides one or more facts about bees
before the start of each chapter. These facts provide a basis for the audience to make
metaphorical connections within the chapter or the book as a whole. Making these connections
helps to fully understand and grasp the major roles that are being played within the story. These
quotes show that, in a way, we are all very similar to bees in the way we think, act, speak, and
interact with our environment.
The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from
the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they how
unmistakable signs of queenlessness. Chapter one begins with the main character; Lily. She is a
motherless white girl set in South Carolina in 1964. Although young, Lily is blamed by her
abusive father, T. Ray, for accidentally murdering her mother. In this scenario, Lilys mother,
Deborah Owen, is considered the queen of the Owens household. The effect that Deborahs
death had on both T. Ray and Lily refers to the queenlessness behavior. This behavior is what
motivates Lily to run away from home and T. Ray to become abusive.
Honeybees are social insects and live in colonies. Each colony is a family unit,
comprising of a single...queen and her many fertile daughters called workersMales are reared
only at the times of year when their presence is required. Throughout the book, the homeowner
of the pink house, August, acts as the unifying force to which the rest of the residence seem to

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revolve around. She is there to provide advice, help others, and most of all protect them. The
residence of the pink house are all female and the only male characters in the book seem to
appear when their role is pivotal to the plot of the story.
The queen must produce some substance that attracts the workers and that can be
obtained from her only by direct contact. The substance evidently stimulates the normal working
behavior in the hive. The chemical messenger has been called queen substance. Experiments
have shown that the bees obtain it directly from the body of the queen. With August acting as
queen most of the time, she seems to emit a sense of security and love that only a mother can
give. She gives off these feelings by touching Lily and the others to make them feel at home
around her and help them feel safe. August acts as the center of the story and the queen bee even
if the main character is Lily.
The whole fabric of honey bee society depends on communication--- on an inane ability
to send and receive messages, to encode and decode information. Throughout the story,
everyone in the pink house seems to have some sort or form of communication issues. Lily is
unable to ask her questions about her mother until the last few chapters because of her fear of
being sent back to live with T. Ray. May could not express in words her reaction when the phone
rang and she was informed that Zach was in prison. Because of her inability to let out what she
was feeling, she ended up commited suicide.
A queenless colony is a pitiful and melancholy community;there may be a mournhul
mail or lament from within Without intervention, the colony will die, but introduce a new
queen and the most extravagant change takes place. Lily has gone through two queen bees in
her lifetime. The first was her mother who gave birth to her and raised her until Lily was four.
Due to her demise, Lily was living in a colony without a queen and it was falling apart. When

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her and Rosaleen took off to find August, they were leaving one nest to find another with a
queen to care for them. When they arrived at the Boatwright's house, they were saved.
Eventually, without a queen, Lily and Rosaleen would fall into disarray.