Chapter 1 Summary

Life on a peach farm in South Carolina in the 1960s would be hard for many, but for Lily Owens, a white teenager, it is slowly destroying her strength of character. Her father T-Ray resents her after the death of her natural mother, Deborah, and Lily blames herself for pulling the gun's trigger, even though she was too young to remember the event. At the age of fourteen, Lily can still hear the blast ricocheting around the room as she deals with longing for the mother she never knew.

Rosaleen Daily keeps the Owens house in order, cooks and has become a substitute mother for the young and napve Lily. The bees first appear in Lily's bedroom, in the summer of 1964. Rosaleen tells her that they are a symbol of death, and Lily realizes that she is the only one in the household...