Hannah Rosefield

Bee-Listers

A Sting in the Tale

By

Jonathan Cape 256pp £16.99 order from our bookshop

In 1884, 282 hibernating bumblebees travelled on a ship from London to New Zealand. Only 48 survived the journey. Those were the first bumblebees to take flight in the country. They had been shipped over at the request of British settlers, who needed British insects to pollinate the red clover imported from their homeland. Nearly 130 years later, bumblebees thrive in New Zealand. 

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • RT : Founded in 1979, is a trusted independent source for reviews of new books across a variety of genres. A… ,
    • RT : Here we are - "Shelf Indulgence" by Ed Potten, a wonderful read, well worth your time: @Lit_Review,
    • 'Like going to a party hoping to get away as quickly as politeness allowed and at 4am finding myself still engrosse… ,
    • 'Neville never shed his sense of being the junior, and perhaps least-deserving Chamberlain.' From the archive, Mic… ,
    • 'The erecting and immediate destruction of a series of straw men rather detracts from what is for the most part an… ,
    • RT : A magnificent demolition job on this "acid laced tirade...unpleasantly self-obsessed...self pitying polemic...book… ,
    • 'Seventy years on, the time we have left to gather such first-hand testimony is running out.' John Keay on the sig… ,
    Follow Us