Josh Traynelis, Post 2

I chose the quote at the beginning of chapter nine: "The whole fabric of honey bee society depends on communication-on an innate ability to send and receive messages, to encode and decode information." This quote was chosen to be put at the beginning of the chapter because it represents how all the characters struggle with communication. Throughout the chapter, Lily is not able to tell anybody what is truly wrong with her. The sisters are constantly worrying about her but Lily continuously with holds the information. When Lily visits Zach while he is in jail, she is at a loss for words and because of this is not able to communicate her true love for him. Sadly, nobody communicates to May that Zach is in jail with fear that she will have one of her fits. When May finds out about Zach she feints but soon regains consciousness. May then acts like she is heading to the wall but in truth commits suicide. August hesitated to let her go outside, but gave in. Had May communicated her problems to her sisters and August been able to understand or decode what was going to happen, May would most likely still be alive. This quote shows one of the problems that many of us face today, the inability to communicate.