A honeybee alights on an apple blossom. (Photos by Ellen Harasimowicz)

“Hold it, don’t move.” These words, along with “Say cheese,” are instructions from a photographer that subjects are usually happy to comply with. But what if the subject is your arm and there’s a honey bee sitting on it and that bee is about to sting you? How do you “hold it” instead of swatting, screaming, and running? Author Loree Griffin Burns of West Boylston and photographer Ellen Harasimowicz of Harvard will answer that question and others at their book sale and signing Thursday, June 3, at 6:30 p.m. in the library. The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe is part of Houghton Mifflin’s “Scientists in the Field” series, and it tells a fascinating story in delightfully written prose and amazing photographs.

While the book is aimed at a middle- and early-high-school-age audience, it is instructive, enjoyable, and inspiring for older readers, as well. The first words of the book invite us into the garden of Mary Duane, a hobbyist beekeeper: “Put on your veil, grab your hive tool, and light up your smoker ... we’re going into a beehive.” We watch Mary take apart her hives and inspect them. Having quickly become hooked on the welfare of these bees, we are shocked to learn that in 2007 Dave Hackenberg, a commercial beekeeper who rents hives to farmers for pollination, discovered a catastrophe. When he went to transport 400 of his hives, he found that they were all empty; 20 million honey bees had suddenly disappeared, leaving behind their food and their queen. Soon other beekeepers across the country made similar discoveries, and the phenomenon became known as colony collapse disorder. Our nation’s honey bees were disappearing; the country’s food supply was at risk; and no one seemed to know what to do.

Enter the “hive detectives.” A picture and brief resume introduce each of the four members of this “dream team” of bee scientists. We follow their experiments as they try to solve the mystery of the disappearing bees. First some samples are collected, and autopsies show that the bees from the collapsed colonies were very, very sick, with multiple diseases and damage to their organs. Next we see how tests were conducted to see if certain known hive pests could be the culprits. Then viruses were examined, and finally the effects of certain chemicals on the bees’ environment. Loree makes the scientific explanations very accessible; for example, to describe how a virus is spread she says it happens when a healthy bee eats “virus-loaded spit on flowers” left by a sick bee. In discussing how eating only one kind of nectar might affect the nutrition of bees, she likens it to our eating hamburgers morning, noon, and night for six weeks.

Loree Burns gets stung on the arm by a honey bee.

In between each of these investigations by one of the hive detectives, is a two-page spread that gives different bee facts, with accompanying photographs. One describes the contents of a hive, another gives a “who’s who.” This creative organization lends variety to the book in both content and layout. At the end of the book we return to Mary’s garden, actually her house this time, and learn how she makes honey. We also learn what she is doing to ensure that her hives remain active and her bees healthy.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the “Appendix Bee” because it says so much about Loree as a writer and as a person. Clearly she was not willing to “mess up” her ingenious organization and layout, but there were things she had learned about bees that were just too interesting for her not to share them with readers.

Ellen was introduced to Loree two years ago by Betty Jenewin, a photographer with The Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Betty had made some of the images for Loree’s first book Tracking Trash (published in 2007) but was unable to continue their working relationship. Betty recommended Ellen, and she and Loree hit it off right away. Ellen had done very little nature photography, but she was willing to go for it, and she feels so fortunate that she did and that she has entered into this partnership. “As I tell my kids,” she says, “you need to be open to opportunities. Even if something seems like a stretch, give it a try.” And then, she adds, “you pay it forward.”

Three weeks after they met, Loree and Ellen were off to Maryland and Pennsylvania with two bee suits and equipment, Loree’s notebooks, and Ellen’s camera. Loree had the itinerary set up and ideas for pictures she wanted, and at each site Ellen added some of her own. Looking at the images of bees gathering nectar, of the queen and workers inside a hive, of a bee amidst a yellow froth of comb honey, it’s hard to believe Ellen is a newcomer to nature photography.

Photographer Ellen Harasimowicz holds up a frame covered with honey bees while on a shoot at Hackenberg Apiaries in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Loree Griffin Burns)

Asked about the publishing process, Ellen remarked that she liked it but that it’s awfully slow. Loree and Ellen reviewed three proofs of the book and were able to make some changes before the final version came out on May 3. The whole process took about two years. It is obvious that this is way too long for Ellen and Loree, who would ideally like to do a book a year. They have one with a publisher now, scheduled to come out in 2012. It is about seasonal nature projects that citizens, from kids to seniors, can become involved in: tagging monarchs, listening to frog calls, counting birds at Christmastime, and tracking lady bugs. Research for this book and another one in the works has taken Ellen and Loree to Mexico and Costa Rica. Ideas for future books tumble out of Ellen’s mouth as fast as she can talk. What’s happening to the wildebeest? What about coral reefs? How about wild horses out west? And then she throws into the mix that her passion is to do a photo documentary involving children.

Before entering into this felicitous partnership with Loree, Ellen was doing freelance photography for the Boston Globe and other clients. She loves sports photography and shoots football games at Bowdoin College. She has made two trips to Africa with a Christian humanitarian group, trips that were life-altering for her. She says that after seeing the realities of child soldiers and 12-year-old girls with children of their own, she looked at things differently when she came back home. In the midst of poverty it is food, shelter, and community that are essential for survival, she says. You can’t underestimate the importance of community. “It’s about people, not about things,” she adds. In her community at St. Theresa’s, Ellen is working to raise $14,000 to build a well for the people in a village in Uganda. Ellen also does presentations in schools on animals and their habitats, including honey bees, butterflies, and gorillas in Rwanda. She laughs as she admits, “I used to be terrified of public speaking.”

Ellen’s passion to bring important issues to the fore seems to have found a perfect outlet in The Hive Detectives. In addition to giving information about bees and their importance to our food sources, the book shows that our world is a dangerous place for honey bees and asks us to be active observers of nature and good stewards of our environment.