Honey Hunters

Rachel Bower discusses ‘Honey Hunters’, her poem about the prehistoric figures in the Cuevas de la Araña in Spain, which is included in the Hazel Press collection, Bee. The paintings offer one of the oldest records of ancient beekeeping and there has been much debate about the gender of the figures.

Honey Hunters
c. 6,000 BCE Cuevas de la Araña (Spider Caves), Valencia, Spain
 
Two silhouettes scale a ladder to harvest honeycomb. Men. 
The Cutter, at the top, plunges an arm into the nest, hauls
out a screaming slab. The Holder, below, braces as wax lumps
high above. The Cutter reaches again, until the grass bag is full,
oozing. His descent is a raging mass, face upturned, blood
and stings blistering the soles of his feet, trusting the Holder
is ready to receive him. 
 
Two honey hunters. Wife at the top taking instruction from
Husband on the ground. Throats scorched with smoke. The
bottom figure is a stick. Straight lines, circular head. Talking
mouth. Faded. The top figure has shape. Waist, triangles, hips,
tapered legs. Wife moves slowly, knows these bees, bone-knife
flashing in the heat. Her foot locks in: hook, wrap, twist of rope.
She takes just enough. Cannot hear Husband above the roar.
 
Two sisters. Performing the ceremony before the climb.
Incense and flowers for the cliff gods. The first wrestles a sheep,
grips it tight between her thighs. The second makes the cut,
deep into the throat, flow of hot blood. They take turns on the
rope after that, agonising dance, seething bees, fingers fat with venom. 
 
She squats by the fire, 
eyes swollen shut; sucks honey
from huge grins of comb.

Rachel writes:

I wanted to capture something of this painting, and the debates surrounding it, in ‘Honey Hunters’, but this is obviously a lot for a single poem to carry.

In the early stages of researching and writing the poem, I experimented with language and forms that could shift and allow me to retell the same story (and visit the same place) repeatedly, from different perspectives. Although some poems take a long time to find their shape, ‘Honey Hunters’, perhaps surprisingly, settled into itself as a haibun, relatively quickly. The haibun, originating in Japan, combines a prose poem with a haiku. The form encourages play and movement, but also allows for a looping back to that which changes, even while certain elements of it remain the same.

In her discussion of the haibun, Aimee Nezhukumatathil describes how it helped her write about ‘place’ when she felt ‘inextricably connected to certain landscapes that shift and change more often than the seasons’ (Academy of American Poets, February 2014). ‘Honey Hunters’ circles around three of the many possible stories of the painting, beginning with two men, moving to ‘Wife’ and ‘Husband,’ and closing with two sisters.

Through these three stories, the poem evokes the long and complex relationship between humans and bees, and speaks to some of the central themes of the collection as a whole. This relationship is a little like a dance; full of negotiation, drama, risk, reciprocity, ritual and learning. The role of women in this dance is incredibly important, from the ancient role of women in beekeeping, to the formative role of beekeeping in establishing women’s place in science, to the powerful links between women beekeepers and women’s suffrage.

The poem closes with a haiku – a kind of ‘murmur’ which follows the prose poem – and this leaves the reader with the slightly sinister ‘grin of honeycomb.’ In this way, the poem hopes to gesture towards some of the darker aspects of beekeeping: the impulse to control, to produce, to consume. And in this way, the poem, like the collection, ultimately brings us back, as humans, to the bees: to the pain and pleasure; sweetness and sting.

Listen to Rachel read ‘Honey Hunters’.

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Rachel Bower is a poet and novelist based in Sheffield. Rachel was awarded second place in the Michael Marks Environmental Poet of the Year 2024, and her poems and stories have been widely published in literary magazines, including The White Review, Magma, The Rialto and The London Magazine. She had a poem Highly Commended in the Ginkgo Prize 2023 and was shortlisted for the Best Poem of UK Landscape 2023. She is the author of It Comes from the River (Bloomsbury 2025), and two poetry collections. https://rachelbower.net/

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Poems copyright © Rachel Bower 2025.