Meredith May jokingly likens her work attire to that of Walter White — the chemistry teacher-cum-meth-maker in the AMC show “Breaking Bad.”

“I’ve got the white suit, the veil, the gloves, the rubber boots,” she says. “I cover every inch.” In her case, the head-to-toe get-up allows her to tend to her beehives, an activity that her grandfather introduced her to when she was school-age.

As a kid growing up in a turbulent household, she found refuge in the magical world of these industrious pollinators, getting lost in their buzzing virtuosity. As an adult, apiculture remains “supremely meditative,” she says. “The childlike wonder is still there for me. It puts me back in that mind space where everything is shut out and you’re really concentrating on what you’re doing — and being delighted and surprised by what you’re finding.”

May is a fifth-generation beekeeper. She also previously spent 16 years as a reporter and feature writer for The Chronicle, where she occupied her days with telling other people’s stories. She won several awards — including the PEN USA Literary Award for Journalism and the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism — and was shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize for her “Operation Lion Heart” series that documented a 10-year-old boy’s recovery from a devastating explosion in Iraq.

Now May, 49, is sharing her own poignant story — an endeavor that was about seven years in the making.

“The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees” was published last month by Park Row Books (337 pages; $24.99). “I wrote it because I had to,” says May. “I had to get it on paper — to literally put my life on the shelf and move on.”

In the book, she offers a gripping narrative of life after her parents’ divorce when she was just shy of 5 years old. With May and younger brother Matthew in tow, her mother decamped from Rhode Island to California’s Carmel Valley. They moved in with May’s grandparents, who quickly assumed caregiving responsibilities for the siblings as their mother descended into depression.

E. Franklin Peace, a plumber and beekeeper and the man May refers to as Grandpa, was her step-grandfather — Granny’s second husband. “I’m not blood related to my grandpa,” says May, “but I consider myself raised by him and raised by honeybees, which is quirky and strange and beautiful, all at once.”

May’s memories of a largely absent mother and a dutiful but cold grandmother are interspersed with life lessons imparted by her affable grandfather. “He spoke in metaphors, using the bees as examples of the proper way to behave,” May writes. “What he found noble and admirable in the way bees lived translated into his moral code for humankind.”

Bees, for instance, live for the greater good, with each of their tasks — from the drone and field bees to the nurse and queen bees — contributing to what May calls the “collective strength.”

As Grandpa explains bee behavior and the honey-making process to a young May, the reader is enlightened as well. “There’s really three voices in the book: the child me, the adult me reflecting on what happened and the beekeeper/teacher me,” she says.

The titular vehicle was a 1951 military bus that her grandfather converted into a honey production site. While his hives were kept at various Big Sur locales, the bus sat stationary on the family’s property for decades — the seats and engine long ago removed in favor of a spinner, pipes, rubber hoses and storage tanks.

“The Honey Bus” started out as May’s graduate school thesis project. In 2010 and 2011, when she was enrolled in an MFA program at Maryland’s Goucher College, she wrote a slew of short stories, half of which are included in “The Honey Bus” in some form. It wasn’t until Peace’s death in 2015 that she completed the book — at least an early incarnation of it.

That same year, May left The Chronicle. Her book agent, Heather Karpas at ICM Partners, sent around the proposal for “The Honey Bus.” “I had a few nibbles, no bites,” says May, who subsequently became depressed and, reminiscent of her mother, spent time wallowing in bed. But May’s funk lasted only a day or two, rather than the years that her mother’s spanned.

“I was so scared I was going to turn into her,” May professes. “Looking back, it was probably normal. But because I had the experience I had, I really freak out if I do something like that.”

Although “The Honey Bus” wasn’t picked up four years ago, one of the editors who read the proposal approached May to write “I, Who Did Not Die.” Released in 2017, the book centers on the remarkable tale of Zahed Haftlang and Najah Aboud, POWs on opposing sides of the Iran-Iraq War. The project, says May, “was so moving and it really puts your own victimhood in stark perspective.”

It made her realize the problem with the rejected manuscript for “The Honey Bus”: It was essentially a “monster-mom memoir,” as she puts it. “It needed a higher calling. My story’s more about the unusual, lovely way I was rescued by my grandfather and the bees. I rewrote my proposal and the whole memoir. I called my agent, sent it to her and she said, ‘It’s a totally different book. We can go out with it again.’ ”

The rewrite took May seven months and was well worth the effort: This time,“The Honey Bus” was acquired within a couple of weeks. It will be available in 13 countries and printed in 11 languages. USA Today recently named it one of five books not to miss, and Bustle included it in a roundup of spring’s best new memoirs.

Today, in addition to writing — she has a female athlete in mind for a biography and is also considering a children’s book — May keeps six hives in San Francisco’s Connecticut Friendship Garden. Until a few weeks ago, one of those hives was set in the backyard of the Daly City home she shares with wife Jenn Jackson, a lieutenant with the San Francisco Police Department. (The relocation was prompted by the stinging of the pair’s 7-month-old golden retriever, Edith.)

During her ongoing book tour, May is often asked how people can help the declining bee population. “Bees need more forage because we’ve paved over everything or we’ve built mono crops, so they don’t have diverse flowers,” she says. “Planting wildflowers — in between crop rows, on freeway medians, on rooftops, everywhere, not just in neighborhood gardens — guerrilla seeding would be the easiest and most beneficial thing we can do.”

It’s what her grandfather – to whom “The Honey Bus” is dedicated – would want, she adds. “This is the thing that I’m happiest about with the book: It made Grandpa immortal,” says May. “He was such a good person; you don’t find people like that anymore. Maybe other people will get to enjoy him and be inspired by him. I think that’s so amazing. … He’ll still live on in this book.”

Author events

May’s book tour continues with readings, signings, honey tastings and sometimes even live bees in an observation hive. Purchase a copy of “The Honey Bus” during an event and receive a 3-ounce jar of May’s honey as well as beeswax lip balm that she makes. Visit www.thehoneybus.com for more information.

May 4, 4-6 p.m. Nepenthe, Big Sur (book party and 70th anniversary celebration for the restaurant)

May 10, 7 p.m. Copperfield’s Books, Sebastopol

May 16, 7:30-9 p.m. Dolphin Club, San Francisco

May 18, 2-4 p.m. The Big Sur Grange, Big Sur (includes a tribute to Peace)

June 9, 1:30 p.m. Copperfield’s Books, Novato

June 19, 6:30-8 p.m. Ygnacio Valley Library, Walnut Creek