Robbie Shell, a former business journalist and co-author of a book on leadership, turned her attention to honeybees when her brother, a beekeeper, brought her jars of honey harvested from his backyard hives. Totally enthralled by the teamwork and efficiency displayed by these tiny pollinators, she left her job as a business editor/writer and wrote “Bees on the Roof.” The middle-grade environmental fiction novel tells the story of four seventh graders competing in a science competition but also educates young readers about the importance of honeybees to our environment and the dangers they face from the still mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder. Robbie grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Charlottesville, Va., Boston, Mass., New York CityRobbie Shell, a former business journalist and co-author of a book on leadership, turned her attention to honeybees when her brother, a beekeeper, brought her jars of honey harvested from his backyard hives. Totally enthralled by the teamwork and efficiency displayed by these tiny pollinators, she left her job as a business editor/writer and wrote “Bees on the Roof.” The middle-grade environmental fiction novel tells the story of four seventh graders competing in a science competition but also educates young readers about the importance of honeybees to our environment and the dangers they face from the still mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder. Robbie grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Charlottesville, Va., Boston, Mass., New York City and Washington, D.C. She and her husband now live in Philadelphia, where they raised their two sons. She has never been stung by a honeybee. (Wasps are a different story.)...more
I recently came across bees in an unlikely venue: a play called “Constellations” that revolves around the relationship between a physicist (Marianne) and an urban beekeeper (Roland). The play explores different perceptions of time in a way that is comprehensible to those of us who know very little, or nothing, about quantum mechanics, string theory, parallel universes and other th