The most obvious symbols in The Secret Life of Bees are the bees themselves. Kidd makes it clear from the start that she’s drawing an analogy between the behavior of bees and the behavior of human beings: every chapter begins with an epigraph from a book about bees, and we gradually realize that each one has some thematic significance for the events of that chapter. Specifically, the bees in their beehives symbolize the women in the novel, sheltered in their tiny house in Tiburon, South Carolina. Like bees, the women develop an extremely close, nurturing relationship with each other. At the same time, the sheltered nature of their lives is a constant challenge: like queen bees in a hive, Lily Owens and the Boatwright family are surrounded by “darkness”; i.e., the moral uncertainty they face as they try to decide how to move forward in the face of tragedy.
Bees Quotes in The Secret Life of Bees
The The Secret Life of Bees quotes below all refer to the symbol of Bees. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 8
Quotes
“What I mean is that the bees weren’t really singing the words from Luke, but still, if you have the right kind of ears, you can listen to a hive and hear the Christmas story somewhere inside yourself.”
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“Egg laying is the main thing, Lily. She’s the mother of every bee in the hive, and they all depend on her to keep it going. I don’t care what their job is—they know the queen is their mother. She’s the mother of thousands.”
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Bees Symbol Timeline in The Secret Life of Bees
The timeline below shows where the symbol Bees appears in The Secret Life of Bees. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
The chapter begins with a quote from a book about bees: when a queen bee is taken from a hive, the other bees notice her absence...
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The year is 1964. An unnamed narrator sits in bed and watches bees flying around the room. The narrator, a 14-year-old girl, thinks back on everything that’s happened...
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The narrator sees a swarm of bees entering her room, and she runs to wake her father. When T. Ray surveys the...
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The morning after she wakes T. Ray, Lily tries to catch a bee to prove that she wasn’t lying last night. She shows Rosaleen the jar she’s found,...
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...to leave T. Ray as soon as possible. In the afternoon, she catches a few bees in her jar.
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...he assumes Lily is talking about “female puberty.” That night, Lily decides to let the bees out of her jar. To her surprise, the bees stay in the jar even after...
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Chapter 2
The epigraph for this chapter, again from a book about bees, explains that when a swarm of bees leaves an old hive, a few “scout bees”...
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Chapter 3
The epigraph from the bee book discusses how the best way to find a queen is to find its “circle...
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Chapter 4
Another selection from the bee book explains that honeybees are mostly female—males are born and raised, but only when their...
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...to use some of the equipment, and explains that her grandfather left her a huge bee farm. August tells Lily that her usual assistant, a teenager named Zach, is on vacation....
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Chapter 5
A book on bees explains that the biggest difference between a human’s life and a bee’s is the constant...
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...their stay later by working in the honey room. May teaches Lily a song about bees, which Lily enjoys singing. Lily quickly learns that life among the Boatwrights revolves around honey....
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...and Rosaleen came to the Boatwrights’ house. That evening, August shows Lily how the queen bees lay their eggs. August “introduces” Lily to the queen bee, and shows her the honey...
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Chapter 6
In a book on bees, we learn that the queen controls the worker bees in the hive by feeding them...
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Chapter 7
In a book about bees, we learn that it’s a misconception that bees are constantly having sex—on the contrary, bees...
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Chapter 8
According to a book about bees, honeybees need social companionship to survive.
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August tells Lily more about her grandmother: she taught August how to take care of bees. Her grandmother claimed that bees hummed the music of Jesus Christ. August clarifies that this...
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...the hives (just as Lily and Zach did a few weeks before). Out on the bee farm, August tells Lily to close her eyes and listen to the sound of the...
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Chapter 9
According to a book on bees, a honeybee relies on careful communication with other bees.
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...evaporated the water already inside. While Lily replaces a lid on a hive box, a bee stings her. August explains that the hot weather makes the bees “out of sorts.” Lily...
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...Zach looks frightened and uncertain. August tries to calm him by telling him about the bees on the farm. Zach asks Lily if she’s been writing in her notebook. Lily wants...
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Chapter 10
The book on bees informs us that a bee’s life is very short—most worker bees die in less than...
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...in honor to May. The purpose of this tradition, August explains, is to prevent the bees from flying away after a death in the family. She also tells Lily the story...
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...body to be buried, and Lily goes outside to listen to the sound of the bees humming in their hives. She thinks that they sound like “souls flying away.”
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Chapter 12
This chapter’s epigraph is about how the life of a queen bee is very hard. She doesn’t always know how to take care of her “children,” and...
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Chapter 13
In this chapter’s epigraph, we learn that worker bees, despite their small size, can fly carrying objects that weigh more than they do.
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Chapter 14
The last chapter’s epigraph is about a hive of bees without a queen. A “queen-less colony” is sad and mournful, but when a new queen...
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The next day, Lily goes to meet August by the beehives. August shows Lily a beehive that’s missing a queen bee. As they look at the...
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