Slide Show: The Keepers

The photographer Christine Collins has long been curious about how people reconnect with the natural world in today’s urbanized society. In 2010, she became interested in a suburban community west of Boston, where residents were harvesting honey for themselves and to share with friends and neighbors. “People recognize that if you have a bee hive in the neighborhood, it’s good for gardens, an idea that goes back to suburbia, where your lawn is the prize,” she says.

Collins began this project, “The Keepers,” after the community’s colony collapsed from the cold in the winter; using a 4x5 view camera, she wanted to document the beekeepers’ efforts to revive it. Collins was enthralled by the low-tech process of beekeeping. But she also discovered that, ultimately, the evolution of a bee hive—and the colony to which it belongs—is left largely to nature.

Photographs by Christine Collins/Jen Bekman Gallery.