The Beekeeper Of 'Honeyland' Knows All Too Well: Respect Nature, Or Get Stung

I'm not sure that any creature is more marvelous than the honeybee, with its highly evolved social organization, its ability to create honey, and, of course, the stinger that causes us to take heed whenever we hear buzzing. The pain it threatens makes it easy to think you need an almost-monastic devotion to become a beekeeper.

This idea is certainly common in books and films, where keeping bees has become a metaphor for withdrawal from the world — be it Marcello Mastroianni's disaffected ex-teacher in The Beekeeper, Peter Fonda's Vietnam-vet-turned-beekeeper in Ulee's Gold, or the hero of Michael Chabon's short novel, The Final Solution, in which a retired detective who's surely Sherlock Holmes now inhabits what's called a "bee-crazed hermitage."