The honeybee is a colonial insect that is often maintained, fed, and transported by farmers. Honeybees are a subset of bees which fall into the Order Hymenoptera and Suborder Apocrita. Of the approximately 20,000 known species of bees, four are considered honeybees: Apis florea, Apis dorsata, Apis cerana, and Apis mellifera (Western honeybee). They have been domesticated at least since the time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids.

Honeybees store honey (which is made from nectar) in their hives, which provides the energy for flight muscles and for heating during the winter period, and pollen which supplies protein for bee brood to grow. Through centuries of selective breeding, honeybees can produce far more honey than the colony needs. Beekeepers, also known as "apiarists", harvest the honey and supply sugar for the winter.

Hard science fiction, or hard SF, is a subgenre of science fiction characterised by the copious use of science and technology, and a focus thereupon. Hard SF stories focus on the natural sciences and technological developments. Some authors scrupulously eschew such implausibilities as faster-than-light travel, while others accept such plot devices but nonetheless show a concern with a seemingly (though often times not)realistic depiction of the worlds that such a technology might make accessible. Character development is sometimes secondary to explorations of astronomical or physical phenomena, but other times authors make the human condition forefront in the story. However a common theme of hard SF has the resolution of the plot often hinging upon a technological point. Writers attempt to have their stories consistent with known science at the time of publication.

Soft science fiction

Soft science fiction is the subgenre where plots and themes tend to focus on philosophy, psychology, politics and sociology while de-emphasizing the details of technological hardware and physical laws. It is so-called 'soft' science fiction, because these subjects are grouped together as the soft sciences or humanities. For instance, in Dune, Frank Herbert uses the plot device of a universe which has rejected conscious machines and has reverted to a feudal society. Consequently Herbert uses the Dune saga to comment about the human condition and make direct parallels to current socio-political realities. Soft science fiction may explore the reactions of societies or individuals to problems posed by natural phenomena or technological developments, but the technology will be a means to an end, not an end itself.

Magic Realism (or Magical Realism) is an illustrative or literary technique in which the laws of cause and effect seem not quite to apply in otherwise real world situations. The term 'magic realism' was first used by the German art critic Frank Roh to describe the unusual realism of primarily American painters such as Ivan Albright, Paul Cadmus, George Tooker and other artists during the 1920s, under whom traditional realism became subtly infused with overtones of the surreal and fantastical. The term grew popular in the 20th century with the rise of such authors as Mikhail Bulgakov, Ernst Jünger, and many Latin American writers, most notably Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, and Isabel Allende. Today, magical realism is used especially when referring to Latin American literature; it was first applied to such literature by the critic Arturo Uslar-Pietri, but only came in vogue after Nobel prize winner Miguel Angel Asturias defined his novels as fitting into the style.

It is difficult to distinguish magic realism from conventional fictional realism. After all, the very plots, characters, and narrator of conventional fiction are not truly realistic. However, stories of magic realism tend to treat reality as completely fluid and have characters who accept this as normal. An encyclopedia reshapes the world to fit its descriptions or a stream of blood travels to tell a woman of the death of her husband, and the characters simply accept these unprecedented happenings as more events in their lives.

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