The Secret Life of Bees Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lily's mother, Deborah

When the film begins, we see a little hand playing with a marble, while Deborah, (Lily's mother), is yanking clothes out of her closet. When T-Ray (Lily's father) grabs Deborah, they begin to fight. Deborah yells for Lily, and then a gun falls to the floor. Lily's hand reaches out to it, and though trying to help her mother, she ends up shooting, and killing her. We are then forwarded into the future when Lily is 14 years old.

She is lying in her bed and we hear her say, "I killed my mother when I was 4. That's when I knew about myself.

She was all I wanted and I took her away. Nothin' else much mattered."

Answer: to learn about her mother

After she hands T-Ray his plate, Lily stands off to the side and says, "My birthday's tomorrow. Most girls want one of them silver charm bracelets they have down at the mercantile. But I was just thinking, you could tell me about my mother instead. All you ever said is she's from Virginia and she's an only child like I am. I don't even know what her favorite food was, and what she liked to do, nothin'." When T-Ray finishes eating his breakfast, he gets up and says, "You wanna know about your mama? She used to lure roaches out of the house with graham crackers and marshmallows. Swear to God." He steps on a roach and says, "She was a lunatic about savin' bugs." We learn later there is someone else who lures roaches out of the house using this same method, May.

In a scene when Lily comes from the honey house to get a drink of water, she sees May on the floor, making a trail of graham crackers and marshmallows that lead to the front door. May looks up and says, "I saw a roach. The roaches will follow this right out the door. Works every time." Lily then says, "Miss May? Did you know a woman named Deborah? Deborah Owens? She was a white woman from Virginia.

It would've been a long time ago." May then says, "Oh, yes. She stayed out at the honey house. She was the sweetest thing."

Answer: a pair of gloves

Lily unbuttons a few buttons on her shirt, dons the gloves, places her mother's picture on her belly, lies back on the ground and looks up to Heaven. She then speaks to her mother, "When's my hair gonna look like yours? I bet mine used to drive you crazy the way it goes off in eleven different wrong directions. I bet you used to brush it a hundred different times a day just to get it to lay down. I bet you did." Just then T-Ray begins calling for her and she hurriedly tries to button her shirt when he finds her.

When he sees her buttoning her shirt, he thinks she was with a boy so he takes her back to the house and makes her kneel on grits for an hour.

Answer: August Boatwright

Lily then asks him where she lives and he says, "Darndest house you ever saw. Painted like Pepto-Bismol. Your grandma's probably seen it." Later on, after Lily meets the Boatwright sisters, she is having a heart-to-heart with August and says, "If your favorite color is blue, why did you paint the house pink?" August chuckles and replies, "That was May's doing.

When we went to the paint shop, she latched on to a color called 'Caribbean Pink'. She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish Flamenco. I personally thought it was the tackiest color I had ever seen, but I figured if it could lift May's heart, it was good enough to live in." Lily then says, "That was awfully nice of you." August tells her, "Well, I don't know.

Some things in life, like the color of a house, don't really matter.

But lifting someone's heart? Now, that matters."

Answer: Lily's Aunt Bernie

As soon as August asks who they are, Lily blurts out, "You see, my mother died of tularemia when I was little and my daddy just got killed in a tractor accident on our farm in Spartanburg County, so me and Rosaleen, she's our housekeeper, we're on our way to Virginia to stay with my Aunt Bernie. 'Cept I don't have money for a train or a motel, and not that anyone would take in a Negro woman, even though it's a violation of the Civil Rights Act." August senses Lily is lying, but she tells them they can sleep on the cots in the honey house.

Answer: love

While dressing Lily to go into the bee yard, August says, "You see, the world's really just one bee yard. The same rules work in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-lovin' bee wants to sting you. But don't be an idiot. That's why we wear long sleeves and long pants. And don't swat. Don't even think about swattin'. And above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved."

Answer: April

There is a scene where Lily, August, Rosaleen and May are in the kitchen and Rosaleen asks May why do they all have names from a calendar. May tells her, "Our mama loved spring and summer. We had an April too, but she died when she was little."

Another time we hear of April, Lily and August are in the bee yard and Lily asks about the wall. August says, "You noticed she's a little different?" Lily says, "She sure does get upset easy." August tells her, "She had a twin sister named April. It's like the two of them were one soul, sharing two bodies. If April got a toothache, May's gum would plump up red. One time my father used a belt strap on April, and I swear, welts rose up on May's legs too. When April died, it was like the whole world became May's twin sister. And we tried for years to get her help, but the doctors just kept telling us to put her away. So June and I came up with this idea of the 'wailing wall'." Lily asks, "What kind of wall?", and August says, "The 'wailing wall', like the one in Jerusalem. The Jewish people go there to mourn. See, they write their prayers on tiny pieces of paper and then they tuck 'em in the wall." Lily says, "And that's what May does." August replies, "Those little bits of paper are all the heavy feelings May carries around. Seems like the only thing that helps her."

After May's death, Rosaleen's cooking for everyone and puts the last hush puppy on August's plate. June snatches it and August says, "Hey, I'm the eldest", to which June replies, "And the slowest." Rosaleen says she'll make some more and August says, "You hear that June?" August then says to Rosaleen, "Think we might need to change your name, Rosaleen. From now on, we gonna call you 'July'. June says, "I concur."

Answer: Zach's mother, Greta

After dropping off the honey for Mr. Forrest, Lily and Zach go to the theater to see "Surf Party". Once there however, a bunch of white men come and take Zach away. No one wants May to find out because they think it'll be too much for her to handle. Later that evening, May is sewing a dress for Lily and asks August for her scissors. August tells her they're upstairs in her room.

When May goes inside, she comes across Zach's mother, Greta. May asks her how she's doing and Greta tells her, "Zach's still missing. We've got to pray for him." May then walks back through the house and her sisters ask what's wrong. May then faints and they realize what happened.

They are able to get May to speak and she says she has to go to her wall. Shortly after, August comes looking for her because her bath water is ready and June tells her she's still at the wall.

They begin searching for her when Lily sees some of May's things and points them out to August. August becomes alarmed and starts screaming for June.

She then shines her flashlight into the creek and sees May. She drags her out of the water and cradles her in her arms while June lays on top of her mourning. A little while later, August finds a note May left on her wall and as she reads it, we hear May's voice: "Dear August and June, I'm sorry to have to leave you like this, but I know Zach is okay. My heart is telling me so. I hate you bein' sad, but think how happy I'll be with April, Mama and Papa. I'm tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I'm just gonna lay it down now. It's my time to die and it's your time to live. Don't mess it up. Love, May."

Answer: Yes

During a church service at August's home, she decides to tell the story of how the black Virgin Mary came to be: "Back in the days of slavery, our people would go to the praise house on Sunday and ask the Lord to send them rescue. One day, a slave named Obadiah was loading bricks onto a boat and he saw somethin' that had washed up on the shore. Movin' closer, he saw that it was the wooden figure of a woman.

Her body was growin' out of a block of wood. A black woman, with her arm lifted up and her fist balled out. And to his shock, he heard her voice as clear as day.

She said, 'It's all right. I'm here. I'll be taking care of you now.' And Obadiah knew at that moment that God had sent her. Now, everyone knew that the Mother of Jesus' name was Mary and that she was strong and constant and had a mother's heart. And here she was, sent to them across the same waters that had brought them there in chains. Seemed like she knew everything they suffered. And so the people went up one at a time and touched their hand to her chest, wantin' to grab onto the solace in her heart. Mary filled their hearts with fearlessness. And if they ever grew weak, they had only to touch her heart again."

Answer: a pocket mirror

We learn that August took care of Lily's mother when she was little and they shared a special bond. When she brings the box to Lily, the first thing she pulls out is a mirror. She hands it to Lily and says, "Your mama's pocket mirror. If you look in here, you see your mama looking back at you." The second thing she pulls out is a hair brush. Though she says nothing, she hands it to Lily, who finds a strand of her mother's hair in the brush.

The third thing August pulls out of the box is a pin of a whale.

She hands this to Lily and says, "She was wearing that pin the day she got here." Before she pulls the final thing from the box, she says, "There's just one last thing." She then hands Lily a framed black and white picture of Lily and her mother.

The picture shows a smiling Deborah holding a baby Lily with their foreheads touching. Lily then realizes that her mother really did love her.