Acknowledgements

Many thanks to:

my editor Lorna Fergusson of Fictionfire Literary Consultancy for believing in my bees and for sterling work (if you’ve read The Troubadours Quartet you’ll fully appreciate the word ‘sterling’);

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Babs, Claire, Karen, Kristin and Jane for all your constructive criticism and creative genius. This story began as a suggestion from Babs that buzzed around my head until I had to start writing and see what happened;

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Maurice Rossetti, the beemaster, who inspired me to run around a Provençal hillside in a white suit. Thanks to his patience over three years on his beekeeping courses, I have tasted honey from my own workers, produced in our beehives Endeavour, Diligence and Resolution (named by my husband);

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Long-Suffering Husband who did not foresee thirty-odd years ago that he would be running around aforementioned hillside in Provence with me, both dressed in white suits (inevitable, some would say);

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and the reader who told me about her little sister’s habit of stroking bees and who inspired Drianne’s reaction to bees.

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Tannlei’s archery teaching owes much to the most famous philosopher-archer: Confucius.

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My research on honeybees includes

Inspiration from the work of Dr Klaus Schmitt, Weinheim, Germany, on Reflected UV Photography – UV Remapping / Differentials. Thanks to his photographs comparing the way human, butterfly and bee vision would perceive the same flower or other object, I was able to imagine bee-sight. All scientific errors are mine not his.

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You can see his work on his blog.

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Selected reference works:

The Buzz About Bees – Jürgen Tautz

Honeybee Democracy – Thomas D. Seeley

L’Apiculteur – a monthly French journal for beekeepers