Milk Without Honey

The most striking element of Harms’s debut, a graphic elegy to the declining population of bees worldwide, is its profound use of absence. Unadorned or ever-so-lightly-speckled white space can be found on nearly every other page, making fully present the loss of such a crucial component of the natural world. The text accompanying this empty geometry is scientifically precise and poetically sparing; a brief exposition of honey’s historical symbolism precedes a short note on how honeybee colonies operate. Beyond this, the book moves into the space of loss and lack—a parasitic mite spreads diseases deadly to bees by way of the global bee trade. Seasonal shifts caused by climate change lead to fewer and weaker plants for bees to harvest pollen from. Farming monocultures and pesticides sicken and kill bee populations. Yet pollinators persist, yellow and black visual elements suggest—specks turning to swarms, wiry, organic lines of wings and plants unfurling, in the final few pages flowing free, to suggest some small, striking thread of hope.