We’ve all heard the refrain to save the bees, but what if the bees can save us?

Equity educators, authors, and beekeepers Amy Burtaine and Michelle Cassandra Johnson have deeply explored this question in “The Wisdom of the Hive: What Honeybees Can Teach Us about Collective Wellbeing,” and will read from their book at 5 p.m. Friday, June 6, at Vashon Bookshop.

The talk is part of media tour that the authors — who are also best friends and longtime collaborators — are doing for the book, published on May 20 by Sounds True, a multimedia publisher. Earlier in the week, the pair will give a reading at Elliott Bay Bookstore in Seattle.

For Burtaine, the Vashon Bookshop reading is a chance to share a stage with Johnson as she talks to friends and neighbors. She has lived on the north end of the island since 2017, where she keeps bees. The illustrations in the book are done by her husband, Ivan Moy.

Burtaine, in an email, described the book as “a love letter to the bees.”

“We think the bees have so many things to teach humanity about how to practice collective care, attunement to the whole and the environment, and so much more,” she said. Her work with Johnson, who lives in North Carolina, extends beyond the book: they also work together as facilitators and co-lead anti-racism trainings and processes for organizations.

Their book reflects their care for both humanity and bees, weaving together information and reflections about beekeeping, Buddhism and spirituality in chapters that contain stories, poems, meditations, questions and practices.

Bees have long fascinated and inspired Burtaine.

“My first experience with bees was in my 20s when I lived in a rural part of Brasil and helped a neighbor with his 16 hives,” she said. “It was a magical experience that I will never forget and I tell the story in the book. For many years, I had dreams of bees — and snakes, though not usually in the same dream. Michelle and I often say the bees “chose” us, as they do with many people.”

In writing their book, Butaine said they had broken it into sections detailing what they had learned from bees, and including such themes as “attunement, darkness, sweetness, medicine, venom, portals and many others.” They each wrote half of the chapters, she said.

Find out more about the authors at michellecjohnson.com and amyburtaine.com, and read more about the book at tinyurl.com/ywptx2k6.