The Bees, Laline Paull

The Bees is a novel by Laline Paull, a friend recommended it last year and it sounded interesting enough for me to whip out my phone and order a copy from Amazon right there in the pub, the pub was Pave in case you were wondering. 

Whilst waiting for it's arrival I did a little Google search and found various reviews online gushing about how well researched The Bees is and that it was shortlisted for the 2015 Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction. When it hit my doormat I had a quick look at the front and back covers which apart from a rather nice yellow, black and gold colour scheme includes endorsements from three authors and four newspapers, "Gripping" said Margaret Attwood, "Frightening" said the Guardian -making me wonder if they'd maybe read the wrong book... There's some short reviews on the inside front cover, and then another three pages of one paragraph reviews by various people I don't know. The publisher seems very keen to tell you how great and highly acclaimed the novel is before you read it yourself and make up your own mind. Unfortunately, whilst I very much wanted to like the book I have to disagree with all of them.

In the words of Public Enemy:
"Don't Believe the Hype"

The Bees follows the life of Flora 717 from the moment she emerges from her cell onwards. I think the life of a bee certainly has a lot of potential to make an interesting novel, unfortunately Paull seems to know very little about bees. I found an article in the Independent in which Paull says she spent three months reading up on bees in which she read manuals, essays and poems. To be blunt, having read the book I'm more inclined to think she maybe she watched half of Bee Movie before putting finger to keyboard. In the acknowledgements Paull namedrops a number of noted biologists, entomologists and a book on bee anatomy but given the number of mistakes she makes I've got to wonder what she actually talked to them about and if she opened the anatomy book at all.

Whilst it's fair to expect some artistic license in a fictional novel about the life of a bee, Paul goes so far from reality she might as well have written about a colony of hippogriffs, in fact I rather it had been.. In her novel the worker bees are born into separate castes which predetermine their lifelong duties, some being cleaners, nursemaids, guards or whatever. In reality a bees duties depend upon its age. One of the castes seem to be made up of unmated Queens who she gives an important role within the colony alongside the actual Queen, in reality those unmated Queens would've killed their mother and the first to emerge would've probaby killed her sisters too.

Her understanding of bee anatomy seems a bit limited as well. Her bees have actual blood, she mentions it a lot. I'm not sure which edition of The Biology of the Honeybee she looked in but blood is something bees definitely don't have. In insects oxygen is transported in a fluid called haemolymph. as two minutes with Wikipedia will tell you. She also refers to bees making wax, but seems to get that wrong too, writing about liquid wax coming from between cuticle bands when beeswax is actually excreted as flakes from six glands under the bees' abdomen.

She describes Queens fighting but again doesn't seem to get things right. Whilst worker bees have a barbed sting which is why it gets stuck in you Queen Bees completely lack barbs allowing them to dispatch multiple  unhatched rivals. Not Paull's Queens though. For reasons unknown her Queens have extra barbs on their stings.

Her bee behaviour is wrong too. Foraging bees collect from one particular type of food from one partiicular type of  flower at a time. In  Paull's novel, Flora collects nectar and pollen from a dog rose then an echium too, it's probably like going to a scoop shop and bunging everything into the same bag. At one point Flora spends a night sleeping rough and is surprised as she believed no bee could survive a night outside the hive. The fact is it's not unusual for a forager to sleep rough especially if the weather changes. .

As well as having some difficulties with the actual bees she doesn't seem to understands the roles of honey or pollen either. She writes of Flora going to collect pollen to satisfy a craving for carbohydrates. Whilst there are carbs in pollen the bee's main source of carbs is the nectar they collect and make into honey. Pollen is their protein source. I also noticed Paull makes no mention of the fact bees need to dilute honey with water to consume it either, in her novel the bees are eating it neat.

It's not only the bees Paull seems to be getting wrong. There are wasps too. In this novel the wasps bleed green blood ..in reality wasps, like bees, have haemolymph not blood, and it's not green. She also seems to think wasp venom is formic acid. Poor research again. There's formic acid in bee and ant venom but wasp venom is alkali, the complete opposite. Two minutes with Wikipedia would've avoided that mistake.

It's not just entomology Paull struggles with. Ornithology seems a problem area too. Her Crows have red eyes, well unless there's some albinism or something very wrong with them Crows eyes definitely aren't red. At one point she also mentions the scent of a crow's sweat. That would be quite something to experience given birds don't actually have sweat glands. Crow sweat doesn't exist.

There's a mouse. She describes it as having red eyes, again unless there's some kind of albinism mice don't have red eyes.. She refers to it's hundreds of whiskers drawing in scent ..well whiskers don't actually draw in scent, being nothing but thick hairs, and mice don't have hundreds of them anyway. She also describes its "long scaly tail," although mouse tails are covered in fur.

Unfortunately it's not just insects, birds and animals that Paull doesn't seem to have properly researched, it's beekeepers too. The beekeeper in her novel makes an appearance removing frames of honey straight into a plastic bag whilst bare foot and wearing a red dressing gown. Sounds a good way to get stung in exciting new places before getting home with a carrier bag full of bees. She later describes the removed honey comb as 'wet walls of wealth' but they're only wet when the honey is unripe and it's unlikely a beekeeper will be taking unripe honey as it has a very short shelf life before fermenting. When honey is ripe and ready to be removed the cells are covered in wax cappings, dry wax cappings. Dry waxy walls of wealth perhaps, but not wet ones.

I don't know why she decides to give her crows and mice red eyes or the beekeeper a red dressing gown but it really grated with me as it suggests she's missed another noteworthy bee fact: Bees can't actually see the colour red. To them it appears black. Curiously she's aware they can see ultra violet. at the other end of the colour spectrum though.

Whilst the Independent article wrote of beekeepers being impressed with her "accurate depiction of the secret world of the hive" this beekeeper certainly wasn't. If you still feel you want to read The Bees then go for it but I'd strongly advise skipping the blurb on the back as it gives away the plot completely.. and obviously try to forget anything you know about bees, wasps, birds or mice.