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In a remote Tunisian village after the 2011 revolution, Sidi, a solitary beekeeper devoted to his bees, finds his hives slaughtered by an unfamiliar giant hornet not native to the region. As he searches for a way to save his colonies, a pious party that has courted the neglected village wins the country's first free elections. The novel tracks the destruction of the hives alongside the party's rise as one parallel event.
The book treats a foreign-backed political movement like an invasive predator entering an ecosystem that has not evolved defenses against it. A native population that could withstand familiar threats is defenseless against one it has never met, and it gets overrun before it even recognizes the danger. Seen this way, the damage comes less from the invader's strength than from the host's lack of adaptation.
In a village the state has long abandoned, a well-organized religious party wins loyalty by arriving with gifts and material help just before the vote. Political apathy combined with neglect turns handouts into votes.
The title refers to a defense used by some honeybees that have lived alongside giant hornets: many workers engulf an attacking hornet in a tight ball and raise its temperature until it dies. No single bee can beat the predator, but a coordinated mass can kill it with a weapon the hornet cannot survive. The image serves as a model of resistance that is collective, adapted to the threat, and learned from those who have faced it before.