A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings: A Year of Keeping Bees

In this evocative debut, Oxford writing tutor Jukes traces her interest in beekeeping and how it changed her life. Her involvement begins when, while living in London, she helps out an urban beekeeper friend. The hobby “felt like slipping through a hidden side door, stepping slightly outside the flow of things.” Shortly after moving to Oxford to work at a charity, Jukes scouts locations for her own hive, “checking for [suitability], wind exposure, the damp. I glance up to where the trees won’t shadow [the bees].” She wrestles with herself over making the commitment, uncertain of her skills: “What if the bees die or swarm away...? What if I can’t keep them?” But she perseveres, and finds beekeeping a fruitful diversion from her sometimes stressful job. In an affecting subplot, Jukes describes a budding relationship with a male friend in London, candidly revealing their tentative steps toward romance. She also goes into the science and methodology behind beekeeping without losing her audience, revealing salient details of how one builds a hive and acquires the honeycombs. Readers will appreciate the candor and inviting openness of Jukes’s voice throughout this winning memoir. (May)