What is an allusion in chapter 1 of The Secret Life of Bees?

One allusion in chapter 1 of The Secret Life of Bees is found near the beginning of the chapter:

Looking back on it now, I want to say the bees were sent to me. I want to say they showed up like the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, setting events in motion I could never have guessed.

This is a Biblical allusion to Luke 1:26-30:

During Elizabeth’s sixth month of pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin. She was engaged to marry a man named Joseph from the family of David. Her name was Mary. The angel came to her and said, “Greetings! The Lord has blessed you and is with you.”

But Mary was very startled by what the angel said and wondered what this greeting might mean.

The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary; God has shown you his grace.

In these verses, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary to both deliver wonderful news and to give her comfort. Mary is called to a great purpose, and her change in circumstances is the embodiment of hope.

Like Mary, Lily (her name itself a symbol of devotion and humility) is about to encounter a change in circumstances. And like Mary, her transition will seem intimidating at first. However, Lily will rise to the challenge and will find circumstances that also embody hope.

Lily's journey begins not with an angel but with a swarm of bees that she finds in her room one night.

What is one example of foreshadowing in The Secret Life of Bees?

One instance of foreshadowing occurs in Chapter 9, where the death of May is foreshadowed.  In the scene in question, Zach has been put in jail, which for a black youth in that time and place was bound to be a tragedy, and everyone has managed to conceal this from May, who finds the pain in the world to be nearly unbearable.  May, however, answers the phone, and she learns from Zach's mother about his incarceration.  We, as readers, understand very well that May is not going to be able to deal with this easily, but we are given some lines that tell us that the outcome is going to be very bad.  First, we have Lily observing:

To this day August and June wonder how our lives would have been different if one of them had answered the phone instead of May (185).

May then goes into a nearly catatonic state, and when she seems to be all right, she says she needs to go to her wailing wall. The reader may feel somewhat reassured at this point but then Lily relates,

We watched her go down the porch steps and move into the trees.  In life there are things you can't get over no matter how hard you try, and that sight is one of them. May walking into the trees with a little circle of light bobbing in front of her, then swallowed up by the dark (188). 

Then we understand that May, like her twin, can no longer stand the pain in the world and is going to kill herself.  So, Kidd having foreshadowed this death, we grieve for May in Chapter 10, but we are not at all surprised that she is gone.

What is one example of foreshadowing in The Secret Life of Bees?

The picture of the black Mary on the jar of honey at the beginning of the novel symbolizes a mother figure. To Lily, it symbolizes her own mother and leads to her search for her mother. Lily finding the jar and the image of Mary foreshadows Lily's search for the truth about her mother and her eventual meeting with August. Lily's relationship with August is foreshadowed to be a mother-daughter relationship. It is clear throughout that August takes on a surrogate mother role to Lily. 

The other important image at the beginning of the story are the bees that are flying around Lily's room. These bees help foreshadow, again, Lily meeting the Boatwright sisters and developing a deep, meaningful relationship with them. 

What are two examples of foreshadowing in The Secret Life of Bees?

One example of foreshadowing in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees shows itself within the first few pages. Lily is fascinated by bees that mysteriously appear in her bedroom. She first sees them buzzing around and landing on her wall map, and she decides to catch several of them in a mason jar. When she later opens the lid, the bees simply fly out; this helps Lily realize that she has the power to leave the abuse of T-Ray if she chooses. These early bee interactions foreshadow that these tiny creatures will become an important part of her future. This comes to pass as a result of her living with the Boatwrights and helping out on the farm with honey harvesting.

A second point of foreshadowing occurs when August explains the sad situation surrounding the suicide of May’s twin, April. August explains that May never fully recovered from April’s self-drowning when they were children; this enlightens readers about the trauma behind May’s mental instability and bipolar tendencies. Readers are shown the gravity of May’s situation after multiple occasions where she breaks down at seemingly tiny incidents. After May learns about Zach’s wrongful imprisonment, a weight too heavy for her to carry, she, too, drowns herself, which fulfills this second example of foreshadowing.