Buzz: Urban Beekeeping and the Power of the Bee

by Lisa Jean Moore, Mary Kosut

Bees are essential for human survival--one-third of all food on American dining tables depends on the labor of bees. Beyond pollination, the very idea of the bee is ubiquitous in our culture: we can feel buzzed; we can create buzz; we have worker bees, drones, and Queen bees; we establish collectives and even have communities that share a hive-mind. In Buzz, authors Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut convincingly argue that the power of bees goes beyond the food cycle, bees are our mascots, our models, and, unlike any other insect, are both feared and revered.

In this fascinating account, Moore and Kosut travel into the land of urban beekeeping in New York City, where raising bees has become all the rage. We follow them as they climb up on rooftops, attend beekeeping workshops and honey festivals, and even put on full-body beekeeping suits and open up the hives. In the process, we meet a passionate, dedicated, and eclectic group of urban beekeepers who tend to their brood with an emotional and ecological connection that many find restorative and empowering. Kosut and Moore also interview professional beekeepers and many others who tend to their bees for their all-important production of a food staple: honey. The artisanal food shops that are so popular in Brooklyn are a perfect place to sell not just honey, but all manner of goods: soaps, candles, beeswax, beauty products, and even bee pollen.

Buzz also examines media representations of bees, such as children's books, films, and consumer culture, bringing to light the reciprocal way in which the bee and our idea of the bee inform one another. Partly an ethnographic investigation and partly a meditation on the very nature of human/insect relations, Moore and Kosut argue that how we define, visualize, and interact with bees clearly reflects our changing social and ecological landscape, pointing to how we conceive of and create culture, and how, in essence, we create ourselves.

Lisa Jean Moore is a feminist medical sociologist and Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Purchase College, State University of New York.

Mary Kosut is Associate Professor of Media, Society and the Arts at Purchase College, State University of New York.

"For almost as long as I have been working in the field of human-animal studies, I have wanted someone to seriously investigate people's relationships with insects. With Buzz, Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut have made a unique, important, and fascinating addition to the literature. Both authors are talented and observant believers in hands-on research.After reading Buzz, you will forever see bees and those who care for them differently."
-Clinton Sanders, author of Regarding Animals

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals

251 pages, Paperback

First published September 27, 2013

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Academic yet mellifluous, it’s a fabulous study of urban beekeeping with a small bee-tour in Italy.

[Tiki · Rating 1 out of 5]

When she quoted Hilary Clinton, I was done. So glad I didn't pay for this book.

[MaryJo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up at a book exhibit at the American Sociological Association meeting. The authors are feminist ethnographers, and in this book they take on urban beekeeping in NY city, and experiment with taking the bees as subjects as well as the beekeepers. They cover expected topics like the collapse of bee colonies, but they also bring ideas and race, class and gender into their study. The authors also record their own responses and changing relationships not just to urban agriculture, but also to the bees themselves. At times the writing is a little clumsy, but I enjoyed thinking with the authors. I think it would be fun to use this book in a classroom.