Making bee lines

Raymond Huber has tried to write the kind of books he enjoyed as a child. Photo by Peter McIntosh.

Raymond Huber enjoys science-fiction. He also has a penchant for scientific fact. Add to that a long-held passion for writing and a more recent one for honeybees and the result is his second children's book detailing the adventures of creatures winged, willing and (in the case of a giant hornet) wicked.

Wings, published last week, is Huber's follow-up to his 2009 fiction debut, Sting, which has sold more than 4000 copies (in Australia and New Zealand) and was named a finalist in the 2010 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards.

• Parasites and pestilence...

The Dunedin author aims to walk the line between fantasy and reality. Thus his characters, including key protagonist Ziggy (a bee), behave largely as they would in nature, though they happen to have slightly greater powers than ordinary insects ("they can fly faster and further ..."). Oh, they also speak in English.

Why bees?

Blame it on a birthday present, Huber says.

"I think it might have been my 40th when I was given a beehive. I learned about beekeeping and became fascinated with bees.

"I realised I didn't have to invent anything; it was all there. This was a creature that had such weird and wonderful features: it could talk by dancing; it had magnetic crystals in its body and had a weapon it could use only once. Also, it kept the human race alive by pollinating our food crops.

"Really, the honeybee is a bit of a gift to writers," says Huber (53), who has also recently completed a non-fiction picture book, Flight of the Honey Bee, a collaboration with New Zealand illustrator Brian Lovelock.

Wings might be a work of fiction, but it includes an appendix explaining bee science and the cultural history of beekeeping. There is an inherent, albeit understated, message: we need to look after our bees.

"I didn't want to make the message too heavy in this," Huber says. "I wanted it to be an exciting story primarily, but it was partly inspired by concerns over pesticides, which are implicated in the decline of bee numbers.

"Pesticides are affecting bees and weakening them, particularly nicotine-based ones with outrageous names like Advantage, Merit and Admire. In the book I tried to think up a name for my fictional pesticide and it was quite hard because the real names are so awful.

"Bees are definitely threatened by these new nicotine-based pesticides. That is partly because they stay in the plant. By the time the plant flowers, the pesticide is still in the pollen and the nectar and the bees pick it up. At the moment these are sold widely in New Zealand even though they've been banned in a lot of European countries."

An avid reader from an early age, Huber has long harboured a desire to write the type of books he loved reading as a child - "a combination of action, a bit of humour and a few life and death situations for the characters".

"My mum volunteered at a community library in Christchurch so I'd go there every day after school and read. I got hooked on Dr Seuss, then Tintin then The Hobbit.

"With the first book, Sting, I was learning the craft, how to develop characters. I do think you need to let a story sit for a while. I remember reading how Charlotte's Web author E.B. White spent years writing and rewriting that. There is something to be said about taking your time."

Editing is essential, as is external feedback, Huber says, pointing to advice he has received from the staff at publisher Walker Books and, significantly given his intended audience, primary school children.