Introduction

This introduction presents the central premise of the book that the honeybee—in its physical labor and symbolic power—operates at the nexus of the human, the animal, and the environment in the early modern transatlantic. It explores the competing impulses of beekeepers and statesmen alike who either killed bees to steal their honey and wax or worked to preserve the hive and its attendant metaphors. The introduction demonstrates the conventional understanding of hive hierarchy and exemplarity that begins in the classical tradition and is challenged during the Reformation. It offers a posthumanist reading that demonstrates how colonization, the agricultural revolution, and the Scientific Revolution all contribute to writers’ and storytellers’ depictions of beehive precariousness and its relationship to those humans marginalized due to race, class, or gender.