The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Garvin, Eileen. The Music of Bees. Dutton. 2022.

Garvin’s novel is divided into 26 chapters, titled with honeybee terminology that indicates the corresponding human plot line that follows. The novel is narrated from the third-person point of view, which inhabits the perspectives of the three protagonists, Jake Stevenson, Alice Holtzman, and Harry Stokes. The entirety of the novel takes place in Hood River, Oregon.

Jake Stevenson is a recent high school graduate who suffered a recent accident that made him a paraplegic. Confined to his wheelchair, Jake self-isolates himself in his room to avoid the embarrassment of confronting people in his condition. He struggles to accept his injury, and lives in fear of his father’s violent streak.

While driving his wheelchair down a country road, Jake is nearly hit by Alice Holtzman, who is in the midst of an anxiety attack. Alice keeps bees at her homestead in the country side and works a menial job at the county planning offices. Worried for his safety, she drives him back into town and drops him off at his parents’ home. There, she witnesses the raw evil of his father and feeling compassionate for him, offers Jake a job and a place to stay.

Soon, Alice feels compelled to tell Jake he must leave. She misses her alone time and knows he cannot possibly help her with the heavy labor of the apiary. She likes him too much, though, and is never able to bring herself to let him go.

Harry Stokes is a young man in his mid-twenties, who recently moved to Hood River from New York to stay with his uncle. When his uncle passes away suddenly, Harry finds himself homeless and unemployed. He worries he will never find a job because of his status as a felon, punishment for the crime of stealing TVs.

Alice wants to expand her apiary business and needs helping hands to do it. Harry responds to her advertisement for labor and she accepts his application. Jake, Harry, and Alice form a new family at Alice’s place, a series of relationships that helps ground each character in a new life.

At a county meeting, Alice discovers a new partnership between the county and a chemical company called SupraGro. Her friend Stan opposes the company because it has a history of devastating watersheds and honeybee populations in other rural locales around the west. When Alice’s hives begin to die off, she finds conclusive evidence that the perpetrator is SupraGro chemicals sprayed by her neighbor.

She quits her job when she finds out her boss is quitting to go to work for SupraGro, and that he and her old friend Nancy have betrayed her and robbed her of her promised promotion. Without a job, she is no longer able to employ Harry, and dedicates her free time to the Watershed Alliance, a group that is organizing the community to ban Supragro products from the county.

The group holds a peaceful protest in an attempt to keep the sprayer truck from entering the orchards. At the protest, angry local men band together and a violent brawl ensues. During the brawl, Alice and Jake are arrested and Harry drives the sprayer truck far into the woods. Instead of being arrested, he is saved by local law enforcement and begins a new life as a kitesurfing instructor with his good friend, Yogi.

Alice and Jake are released from prison through the good graces of Ken Christensen, father of Jake’s new girlfriend, Amri. Alice acquires the neighbor’s orchard, and together with Jake forms a honey business called Queen of G Honey. Jake and Alice become business partners and live together, co-managing their expanded apiary.