“Let's imagine for a moment that we were small enough to follow a bee into a hive. Usually the first thing we should get used to is the darkness” (Kidd 82). The bee is an insect that spends all day working: working to create a home, working to spread pollen, and working to create honey. The life of bees and bee society can be closely related to the life of humans. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, the author conveys her lessons about human life through the imagery of bees. Bees need a queen to survive. While there are thousands of worker bees for every successful hive, the queen lays eggs and thousands of bees adore her; August teaches Lily, "'...they all depend on her to keep [the system] going...they know that the queen is their mother'" (Kidd 149). When the queen is removed, “the workers very quickly feel her absence. After a few hours, or less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness” (Kidd 1). Throughout the story Lily struggles with the absence of her mother and feels she needs to know her more to move forward. At the beginning of the story Lily is not happy and longs for her mother's presence; “That night I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to heaven with my mother. I would meet her…and she would kiss my skin” (Kidd 3). It is clear that he is unable to function in an unhappy environment without his mother's support. Lily has lived without her queen bee (her mother) her entire life. She searched everywhere for that motherly figure, just like queenless bees. The life of a hive depends on bees knowing and performing their specialized roles. The queen lays the eggs and supervises all the bees, the drones serve the queen and the worker bees b...... middle of paper ...... are made up of many women who meet every week. The women in the group are able to help and support each other without male involvement. Overall, the strong women in Lily's life teach her that, contrary to society's belief, men are not necessary in the home to survive. In the ways shown above, the author has drawn parallels between the lives of bees and the lives of humans. . However, he clearly believes that humans are resilient while bees are not. Bees are hampered by their rigid society and specific roles. Lily proves that this is not the case for humans because she is able to let go of her longing for her mother and accept August as a mother figure. Unlike bees, she can choose her role and her future. At the end of the book she is happy at August's house, she has gone back to school, writes her diary and continues the beekeeping she loves.