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The Pedigree of Honey does not concern the bee -
A Clover, anytime, to him, is aristocracy
(Emily Dickinson)
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I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life.
It does taste rather funny,
but it keeps them on the knife!
(Traditional)
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A swarm in May is worth a load of Hay.
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon
A swarm in July is not worth a Fly.
(Traditional)
Battle in the Bee-garden
BITKA U KOVANLUKU
by
Desanka Maksimovic 1898-1993
Every morning Father takes honey from the bee-garden, he
smokes the beehives with a burning zeal:
the bees fly up high in a great arch,
colliding in a burst of furious anger.
Other winged creatures also are disturbed,
the hornets and the wasps, and the horse-flies on the cattle, and
flocks of birds call to each other in the branches,
amazed at what is happening among the bees.
Dressed in his bee-mask and his broad-brimmed hat, with his sooty,
puffing bellows in his hands
that seem to sound as though they choke with laughter,
Father with difficulty keeps the bees at bay.
At first it looks like some fantastic dance,
like creatures taken from some fairy tale;
and then he looks like a warrior in battle, fighting with
some enemy that has magic powers.
The bees there seem numberless like chaff
and smash their stings against his armoured hands,
like knights did smash their swords against the armour -
but now they're getting tired and move more slowly.
They start to flyaway and settle somewhere,
like a black rain-cloud driven by the wind,
falling to the ground like faded petals
only an occasional one, still sober, charges at him.
And then even that one disappears. The buzzing ceases.
Father returns victorious from the battle,
bringing with him for us the ravished honeycomb.
His hands still smell of smoke, still smell of honey.
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