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After five years of working with bees on her farm in northern Alberta, Jenna Butler shares with the reader the rich experience of keeping hives. Starting with a rare bright day in late November as the bees are settling in for winter she takes us through a year in beekeeping on her small piece of the boreal forest. Weaving together her personal story with the practical aspects of running a farm she takes us into the worlds of honeybees and wild bees. She considers the twinned development of the canola and honey industries in Alberta and the impact of crop sprays, debates the impact of introduced flowers versus native flowers, the effect of colony collapse disorder and the protection of natural environments for wild bees. But this is also the story of women and bees and how beekeeping became Jenna Butler’s personal survival story.

AUTHOR

Jenna Butler

Jenna Butler is the author of three books of poetry and ten short collections with small presses. Butler teaches creative writing and eco-criticism at Red Deer College. In the summer, she and her husband live on a small organic farm near the historic Grizzly Trail in Alberta’s north country.

Reviews

“Butler’s book reads like a cross between a collection of essays and a naturalist’s journal, containing the attentiveness of a love letter and the wistfulness of an elegy.”

– EVENT Magazine

“It is Butler’s luminous and discerning prose that places this volume with other classics that closely observe a place and its inhabitants, giving us insight into what it means to be fully and powerfully human in a turbulent but beautiful world.”

– Story Circle Network

“Butler explores the many ways beekeepers seek healing through bees, going well beyond the expected apitherapy treatments. She notes how some seek economic healing, hoping for financial independence and security, others find spiritual growth through bees.”

– Bee Culture: The Magazine of American Beekeeping

“Butler chronicles the ups and downs of the past nine years in A Profession of Hope (Wolsak & Wynn), her first book of creative non-fiction. And yet it retains the unmistakable touch of a poet: the book clocks in at a concise 140 pages, with short, vivid chapters and an emphasis on writing that stirs the senses.”

– Edmonton Journal