Bee

“ The stout and bustling humble-bee leads with a deep bass rumble as it blunders from blossom to blossom on the bramble or stirs the dust amidst the tree roots as it searches for something, the bee alone knows what. ”

“ Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee :
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry
Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms. ”

“ Bees and Spiders, Earwigs, Beetles and Snails, Dragon-flies, Grasshoppers, and Butterflies are familiar enough to us all; yet how many realise how 'fearfully and wonderfully' they are made? What a marvellously complex weapon is the 'sting' of the bee! What a wonderful 'rasp' the snail possesses! How many can tell how an insect smells, and where its organs of taste and hearing lie? ”

“ Now, the bee, as everybody knows, is a steady, regular, business-like worker: he flies low, hunts close, never mixes his liquors, sticks steadily to one kind of honey produced by one species on each journey, and looks carefully for his selected blossom in and out among the tangled vegetation of meadow or road-side. ”

“ Show me the bee-keeper and I will show you a poet; a lover of waters that go softly like Siloa; with the breath of sage and pennyroyal about him; an observer of nature, who can handle his bees without veil or gloves. Only a few men keep bees,—only philosophers, I have found. They are a different order utterly from hen-men, bee-keeping and chicken-raising being respectively the poetry and prose of country life, though there are some things to be said for the hen, deficient as the henyard is in euphony, rhythm, and tune. ”

“ I remember at one time of sitting by a hive watching the habits of the bees, and thinking how industrious they were, and what a wide difference there is between the toilsome life of the little insect, and the enervating, aimless, idle and luxurious life of the newspaper man, when an impulsive little bee lit in my hair. ”

“ See how the beeches which have sprung up on the declivity recline in nearly the angle of the hill, so that their upper branches are only a few feet from the soil; reminding us, in the midst of warmth and beauty, of the rough winds of winter and the blasting influence of the spray. The insect denizens of the heath and the wood are all on wing; see, there is the red bee, and there the blue butterfly, and yonder the burnet-moth with its wings of vermilion, and the large birdlike dragon-fly, and a thousand others besides, all beautiful and all happy. ”

“ But the bee, that has come from another world, is bewildered still, trembling and pale; she wears the feeble look of a little old man who might have escaped from his tomb, or perhaps of a traveller strewn with the powdery dust of the ways that lead unto life. ”

“ FLAPPER LOVE has crept out of her sealéd heart As a field-bee, black and amber, Breaks from the winter-cell, to clamber Up the warm grass where the sunbeams start. Mischief has come in her dawning eyes, And a glint of coloured iris brings Such as lies along the folded wings Of the bee before he flies. ”

“ Well, the day will swarm in golden again, with colour on the wings of every bee, and humming in each activity. The gold and the colour and sweet smell and the sound of life, they exist, even if there is no bee; it only happens we see the iridescence on the wings of a bee. It exists whether or not, bee or no bee. ”

“ There was, no doubt, a time of old that tradition could tell about, before all this sweat-shop business was afoot, when a bee might have some individuality and some kind of family life for himself, some sort of pleasure of his own; when he could stretch his sticky legs comfortably of an evening and in a pair of loose pantouffles, unfold his newspaper leisurely, and read under his carefully adjusted spectacles, the latest doings in the bee and blossom world ”

“ The bee keeper sometimes finds his bees idle, when the flowers are in bloom in profusion, the sun shining brightly, and to the superficial observer, everything indicating honey in abundance. And yet the bees are dormant, and scarcely one flying about the hives, notwithstanding the hives and boxes are full of them. The truth of the matter is, there is no honey in the flowers, although they are in full bloom. ”

“ The bees were the next. I remembered then seeing different kinds on the Earth, though I had never made a study of them. Here they all came trooping, magnified into great terrible-looking monsters out of a dream: the big black bumble bee, the little yellow bumble bee, the common honey bee, the bright green, fast-flying, slender bee. ”

“ To-day the industrious bees of the monastic order show their wisdom and set all to wonder, for living in the wilderness and providing for themselves, they astonish both angels and men, just as the bee flies upon the flowers and forms combs of honey in order to furnish sweetness to man and what is needed in the church.... ”

“ A bee comes out of a small opening like that made by ants in decayed wood, rubs its eyes and examines its antennæ, as bees always do before leaving their hive, then takes flight. At the same instant several bees come by us loaded with our honey and settle home with that peculiar low, complacent buzz of the well-filled insect. Here, then, is our idyl, our bit of Virgil and Theocritus, in a decayed stump of a hemlock-tree. We could tear it open with our hands, and a bear would find it an easy prize, and a rich one, too, for we take from it fifty pounds of excellent honey. ”

“ First of all a home must be sought for bees, and a post where neither winds may have entry—for winds hinder them carrying their forage home—nor sheep and butting kids tread down the flowers, or the straying heifer brush the dew from the meadow and trample the springing grass. Likewise let the bright scale-backed lizard be far from their rich folds, and the birds that come with the bee-eater, and the swallow, her breast marked with those blood-stained hands: for they spread universal havoc, and carry off the bees on the wing, dainty morsels for their fierce nestlings. ”

“ So as I walk along the bee-garden, a swarm of bees buzzes about the plants and settles on the flowers, but in such an exactly defined circle that the insects disappear as soon as they fly into the shadow. ”

“ Let not any of my readers think that they have even a slight encouragement, from this conduct of the bee, to reserve all their sweet smiles and honied words for the world abroad, while they give free vent, in the sacred precincts of home, to ill-natured looks and ill-tempered language; for towards the occupants of its honied dome, the bee is all kindness and affection. ”

“ The poetic reproach that the bee is a heartless rover, rifling the lily of sweets only to desert her for the rose, is as unjust as it is untrue. Repeatedly have we watched a bee at work in a bed of pinks. ”

“ The bees are the soul of the summer, the clock whose hands are marking the moments of plenty; they are the untiring wing on which delicate scents are floating; they are the guide of the quivering sunbeams, the song of the tranquil, gentle air. ”

“ The bee examines the inside of the old cell to see where repairs are needed, tears down the rags of cocoon hanging on the walls, carries out the bits of earth fallen from the vault pierced by the inhabitant in order to get out, mortars any places out of repair, mends the orifice a little, and that is all. ”

“ The balls are full of honey. The wax and honey of this bee are of a dark color.
One kind of bee has no sting. Would you like that bee best?
The tree bee is also called the wild bee. This bee takes an old tree with a hollow trunk. It cleans out more and more of the old, dead wood, and builds nice combs.
A tall tree may be full of combs, from root to top. In such a tree, more than one swarm will live and work. Each swarm has its queen, and keeps in its own place.
Smoke makes bees fall, as if dead. People drive bees off with the smoke from a fire of wood or paper. ”

“ Thus, again, we are struck with the fact that the more closely we examine the organs of any segment of the body of the insect, the more reason do we find to admire the skill, and the care for His creatures, manifested by the infinitely wise and the infinitely good Maker of them all. Beauty, adaptation, perfection, are the words which are continually suggested to our minds by the contemplation of the structure of the bee. ”

“ Of the insect tribe, the bee is certainly the most distinguished; with the exception of the silkworm, none can approach her in ministering to the wants, or rather to the luxuries, of the human family. The instinct bees possess for feeding on flowers, bringing home honey and - 32 - pollen, and secreting wax, entitles them to our close consideration of their structure and of the tools provided them by Nature for carrying on their handiwork. ”

“ There are many persons, now in this noisy city pent, who frequently remember the days of childhood when, among pastures of clover or amidst flowery heath and woodlands, they listened to the cheerful hum of bees. ”

“ The bee-man in Plate XVII. is wearing a veil, as you will see, and the brim of his straw hat is useful to keep it at a little distance from his face, so that the bees are not able to sting through it. Before we approach the hive I must tell you one thing; if a bee flies around you and comes rather closer to your face than you care about, do not on any account hit it away. Bees, like some human beings, are very curious by nature, and they like to investigate anything strange that comes under their notice. ”

“ The bee, whose habit it is always to alight on the edge of any plane, has to travel through the paint to reach the bee-bread. When, therefore, she flies off, the observer can track her by the white on her body. ”

“ As the bees progress from wildness to civilization, we note that their tongue gradually lengthens, thus enabling more nectar to be drawn from the flowers; hairs and tufts grow and develop, and brushes for collecting the pollen; mandibles and claws become firmer and stronger and the bees acquire the intellect that enables them to make improvements in their dwellings. ”

“ Now, here’s something to remember about a bee itself—say a worker bee, because it would be the one that would carry the pollen. First you can remember that in every one of the little tubes on its nose a worker has got five thousand smell hollows, so it is no wonder it can pick you out if you got a scent about you that isn’t right. ”

“ I want to say, that in speaking of entertaining the little feathered angel birds, in my flower garden, I also entertain them in beneficent ways unseen by me. For bees and birds are necessary and valuable for your flowers. The bees have panniers on their legs where they carry the pollen to the hives, and many a tiny bit of pollen falls from these well-packed panniers to fall into the heart of the blossom from which the bee is gathering nectar. ”

“ The bee is head and shoulders in one of the half-filled cells, and is oblivious to everything else about it. Come rack, come ruin, it will die at work. We step back a few paces, and sit down upon the ground so as to bring the box against the blue sky as a background. ”

“ When a bee enters a flower the hairs are sure to come into contact with the pollen, and by means of the spikes the grains are entangled and held secure. The hairs of the queen and the drone are not so numerous as those of the worker, because these bees do not gather pollen. ”

“ Is it not odd that bees can make so much wax from their small wax-bags?
Did you ever find in the earth the nest of a humble-bee? The humble-bee queen works. Humble-bees dig holes in the earth with their front feet.
[Pg 48]
When they have made a hall and a room, they make a nest. It is of grass, or leaves, or hay, cut fine. They lay eggs in the nest.
They make honey in large combs. The combs are more soft and dark than those which the hive bee makes. Field mice and moles eat these bees and their combs. ”

“ In the immense forests of Poland and Russia, where bees select their own habitations in the hollow trunks of trees, the bee-glue is deposited in much larger pieces, and of a superior flavour, to what is obtained in countries where these insects are reared by the aid of art. ”

“ In each hive there are three kinds of bees. The queen bee is the first. She rules all, and she is the mother of all.
[Pg 37]
The queen bee does no work. She lays eggs in the cells. The father bee is called the drone. He does no work.
Who, then, builds so many fine cells? Who lays up so much honey? Who feeds the baby bees?
The small, quiet, brown work bees do all that.
In each hive there is one queen bee to lay eggs.
And there are the drone bees, who hum and walk about. And there are more than you can count, of work bees, to do all that is done.
WORK AND PLAY.
How does a bee grow? ”

“ The bees take no heed, they pass from flower to flower, seeking the sweet honey to store at home in the hive, as their bee ancestors did before the Roman legions marched to Cowey Stakes. Their habits have not changed ”

“ There is nothing in nature more neatly built than the waxen comb of the bee, and no prettier dish for our tables than a comb full of the golden honey. And there is nothing which most of us like better to eat. So it is the comb of the bee that I shall speak of here, rather than the bee itself.
An Opened Bee Hive Showing the Clustering Bees
The bee goes abroad for honey, but the wax which it uses for the comb is formed in its own body. ”

“ The illustrations for “Queer Fruits from the Bee’s Basket,” with its decorated initial, showing just the right bee, investigating just the right flower; the laden bees hastening from the clump of bushes in the foreground to the distant hives behind the farmhouse; and finally the sketch at the close, of a group of the odd forms of pollen-dust which the microscope reveals;—these are all examples of a fancy which only serves to illumine, throw light upon, the fact, but never to distort it or to pervert it. ”

“ In like manner a young bee, almost directly after it has left its cell, will fly away not only to collect honey from flowers, but will return with its little thighs loaded with what is called bee-bread. ”