The Boy Who Could Bee

An interwoven story combining the real world of people and the fantasy lives of honeybees. A boy sent to a beekeeper in a Devonshire monastery and a mutant queen bee are an unlikely alliance in the struggle for peace when all seems lost.
The bee yard is deceptively serene on a summer day. Brother Adam endeavors to breed perfect bees as his parting gift to the world—gentle champions of the honey industry. His abbot sends young Joe to help the old beekeeper as penance for stealing from the orchard. The boy is bitter after losing his father and has more to contend with than the grouchy monk and stinging insects. When cousin Emily comes from London, she dreams of solving a mystery buried on the abbey grounds by medieval monks. She inveigles him to join a hunt that leads to a beehive where bees guard the secret. But the village gang leader, Brad, is also on the trail.
Another drama unfolds inside the same hive unbeknownst to the keepers. After the monk transfers his prize queen called the “Peacemaker” to that hive the resident bees revolt against her new brood. Tensions escalate after a nursing error creates the mutant “half-queen” Sundew. When her nemesis, Hemlock, fails to eliminate her, Sundew helps an insurrection against the rival brood. After the bee war, Hemlock seeks revenge and thus begins Sundew’s perilous journey.
The boy and girl save the bee from a carnivorous plant. Sundew faces more ordeals before reaching home, but the Peacemaker family has swarmed away. Hemlock’s brood stays to defend the hive from a monster they thought was mythical. The former enemies unite to drive it away before Sundew can search for her queen.
The monk is desperate to recover his precious brood after the vandal wrecked the hive. Joe recognizes Sundew visiting the monk’s tea party and follows her beeline to the swarm. No longer a reluctant beekeeper, he has become the pollinators’ defender and the only person who can oppose the malice threatening them.
This is a story of two lives transformed by resilience in perilous times. Peace returns to the bee yard not through the conquest of enemies but by reconciliation and admitting the waste of violence.
The author pledges profits from royalties to charities for children with cancer.