The Murmur of Bees

Originally written in Spanish as El Murmullo de Las Abejas, the 2015 novel The Murmur of Bees by author and journalist Sofia Segovia was named Novel of the Year by iTunes. The English-language version, translated by Simon Bruni, was published in 2019. Segovia is a Mexican writer born and schooled in Monterrey, in the state of Nuevo León near the city of Linares, where the novel is set.

A work of historical fiction, the book describes the turmoil experienced by landowners and campesinos during the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish flu pandemic (both of which occurred roughly a century before the novel’s publication). Segovia recounts the saga of her ancestral home based on factual accounts of the early 20th century in northern Mexico. In addition, the author incorporates elements of magical realism. The events center around Simonopio, an abandoned baby who communicates with honeybees and has psychic abilities.

This guide references the 2019 Amazon Crossing Paperback edition (translated by Simon Bruni).

Plot Summary

The servants of the Morales family at Hacienda La Amistad—in the city of Linares, in Nuevo León, Mexico—discover that Nana Reja, the elderly former wetnurse, is missing. Fearing she’s dead, the family organizes a search party. Francisco, the landowner, leads the search, while his wife, Beatriz, orders the construction of a casket. To their relief, Reja is found alive and returns to the ranch with a newborn boy who has a cleft palate. Along with the baby boy, named Simonopio, Reja brings a swarm of bees that covered him and remain with him perpetually. As Simonopio grows, he learns to communicate with the bees, sensing the world as they do and acquiring psychic abilities.

Attempting to maintain some normality despite the ongoing Mexican Revolution, Beatriz gathers the upper-class ladies of Linares to plan a religious celebration. The day after the meeting, one attendee dies of Spanish flu. Because Simonopio appears to be ill, Beatriz and Francisco don’t attend the woman’s funeral mass, which becomes a viral super-spreader event. Citizens die in great numbers. Francisco gathers his family and workers and takes them to the family’s second hacienda, La Florida, to avoid contact with the outside world during the three-month pandemic. Guided by Simonopio, Francisco transports Beatriz’s huge Singer sewing machine, cloth, thread, and accessories to La Florida, where she sews incessantly.

The campesino Anselmo and his family don’t travel to La Florida with the other tenants because Anselmo defied Francisco and sent his wife for tobacco in Linares, risking infection. When he sends her a second time, she contracts the flu and dies, along with most of his children. Anselmo blames Francisco for refusing to protect his family. In addition, Anselmo thinks Simonopio is a demon.

During the quarantine, 15-year-old Carmen grows hysterical. She tells her mother, Beatriz, of a young man in Monterrey who professed his love for her. Having not heard from him, she assumes he died of the flu. Beatriz reminds her that no mail has been delivered for three months. They keep Carmen’s suitor a secret.

Once everyone is back in Linares, Beatriz takes clothing and a doll to Anselmo’s house to express their condolences. Simonopio goes with her but hides in the bushes nearby, knowing Anselmo hates him. Anselmo finds Simonopio and threatens him. Confronted by Beatriz, Anselmo says he’ll kill Simonopio the next time he comes onto his property. Beatriz replies that the land will never be his.

Going to the post office to collect three months of mail, Francisco finds 89 letters from Antonio Domínguez addressed to Carmen. He learns that most everyone in town knows about the letters. Once home, he causes an uproar. Beatriz confesses she kept the suitor a secret. The parents set strict guidelines for Carmen’s interaction with Antonio.

Simonopio moves into the supply shed, where his bees have a hive. He takes long excursions because the bees want to show him something important. His journeys continue to grow longer, sometimes lasting for days. To curb his wanderlust, Beatriz takes Simonopio to a circus in Monterrey. Simonopio recognizes that one of the animals, an elephant, is dying, and he’s terrified by the clowns. He decides never to go to Monterrey again. Simonopio also fears Anselmo because he knows the man awaits the opportunity to kill him. The boy decides to avoid Anselmo as long as possible.

Antonio and his family come to Linares to visit Carmen. Amid the gathering, Simonopio enters and gives Francisco two orange peels containing buds from orange trees because the bees at last took Simonopio to the distant place they wanted to show him. Francisco realizes this revelation is meant to persuade him to plant orange orchards. He asks Simonopio to go with him the next day to California. In California, Simonopio selects the best trees with the help of the bees he meets there. Back home, Francisco and Simonopio successfully plant 1,000 trees.

Two years later, Beatriz is on one of her regularly train trips to Monterrey, where her daughters, both married, are both expecting. On this trip, she wonders why she doesn’t feel well. As she gets off the train, Simonopio approaches, smiling, putting his hands on her stomach to indicate that she’s pregnant. While her daughters, Carmen and Consuelo, are dismayed that they’ll have a sibling younger than their own children, Francisco is elated. Beatriz gives birth to Francisco Junior in April 1923, two months earlier than expected. Surprised, they must outfit the baby with clothes and equipment used for Simonopio. Simonopio hovers around the baby, holding him whenever it’s allowed. He tells Francisco Junior that they’re brothers. The adults can’t understand Simonopio’s speech, so he remains silent in their presence. Francisco Junior however, understands him perfectly and chatters just like Simonopio. When his parents separate them so that Francisco can learn to speak comprehensible Spanish, Francisco immediately speaks perfect Spanish so that he can roam with his brother. He becomes Simonopio’s de facto interpreter.

Anselmo views the numerous orange groves and the new baby as further evidence that Francisco Senior intends to prevent him from claiming his plot as his property. He encounters wandering bands of displaced workers, with whom he finds fellowship. They encourage him to find a woman and rebuild his family. Anselmo decides to woo the young laundry woman, Lupita. Failing repeatedly to get her attention, he finally asks her to dance during a nighttime social. She refuses. Anselmo stalks and kills her. Simonopio wakes before dawn, knowing that something’s wrong. He finds Lupita’s body. Francisco Senior thinks the culprits are the area’s many displaced wanderers and arms his campesinos, including Anselmo, with Mauser rifles, telling them to shoot trespassers on sight.

As Francisco Junior grows, he’s free-spirited. He regularly skips school, though each time Simonopio quickly finds him and returns him to class. The young Francisco starts fights with anyone who comments on Simonopio’s cleft palate. He shares Simonopio’s wild, enchanting stories with other children.

After taking Francisco to school one morning, Simonopio hears a sound wagon hawking a weekend event at the river in which a man will sing underwater. Simonopio promises to take Francisco. Most of the Linares citizens plan to attend, though Beatriz and Francisco Senior think it’s a scam. Francisco Senior tells Simonopio that he’s taking his son with him that Saturday, the boy’s birthday, to personally plant the first half-dozen trees on the land worked by Anselmo. Francisco Senior tells Simonopio to attend the underwater singing event while he takes Francisco Junior by himself. Simonopio sits on a rock in the middle of the river. The father and son dig holes for the trees. Ready to plant the first one, Francisco Senior sees Anselmo and his son atop a nearby hill. Anselmo raises his Mauser and shoots, severing Francisco’s spinal cord and causing him to fall on top of Francisco Junior

Sitting on the rock, Simonopio feels disappointed by the sham event and thinks of the father and son. Sensing their danger, he screams, runs through the crowd, and heads across the countryside, summoning the bees from their hive. He hears the gunshot and sees Anselmo standing beside Francisco Senior and then shooting him in the head. Anselmo pulls Francisco Junior from under his father and prepares to knife him, when he hears the shout of Simonopio and the massive swarm of bees. Anselmo and his son race away, only to be stung to death by the bees. Meanwhile, Simonopio takes the injured Francisco Junior into the hills for safety. He keeps him there for two days, during which searchers find Francisco Senior and Beatriz goes through the required motions of a funeral, while consumed with worry about Francisco Junior Simonopio brings the unconscious young Francisco home, where he eventually wakes with no memory of the attack.

During the month that Francisco convalesces at home, Beatriz, who knows that Anselmo was the killer, has his shack bulldozed. Not knowing if Anselmo is still at large, she decides to move her family to their house in Monterrey. As the time of departure arrives, Francisco realizes that Simonopio isn’t present. The adults must force Francisco into the car. For most of his life, Francisco thinks Simonopio abandoned him.

Throughout the narrative, Francisco has been telling this story to the taxi driver who’s taking him from Monterrey back to his birthplace at La Amistad. He now acknowledges that because Simonopio didn’t like Monterrey and would have died of sadness there, it was Francisco who deserted Simonopio. The bees in the area, Francisco says, have come to take him to Simonopio. He instructs the driver to tell the story to his family and follows the bees into the hills.