The Honey Bus (2019) is May's first solo book. Meredith May spent sixteen years at the San Francisco Chronicle, where her narrative reporting won the PEN USA Literary Award for Journalism and was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize. Part memoir, part beekeeping odyssey, The Honey Bus is an remarkable story about finding home in the most unusual of places, and how a tiny, little-understood insect could save a life. The bees became a guiding force in May’s life, teaching her about family and community, loyalty and survival and the unequivocal relationship between a mother and her child. It was during this pivotal time in May’s childhood that she learned to take care of herself, forged an unbreakable bond with her grandfather and opened her eyes to the magic and wisdom of nature. Her mother had receded into a volatile cycle of madness and despair and spent most days locked away in the bedroom.

May was drawn to the art of beekeeping as an escape from her troubled reality. That first close encounter with a bee was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees. She was five years old, her parents had recently split and suddenly she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard. Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm.

The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage, and a Girl Saved by BeesĪn extraordinary story of a young girl who finds solace in one of nature’s most mysterious and beguiling creatures: the honeybee.

The honey bus by meredith may