bees Quotes

“The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him is aristocracy.”

″. . . Big Mama kept bees, too, right out there in the same spot they’re in today. Nobody around here had ever seen a lady beekeeper till her. She liked to tell everybody that women made the best beekeepers, ‘cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting. ‘It comes from years of loving children and husbands,’ she’d say.”

“Putting black cloths on the hives is for us. I do it to remind us that life gives way into death, and then death turns around and gives way into life.”

″‘Covering the hives was supposed to keep the bees from leaving. You see, the last thing they wanted was their bees swarming off when a death took place. Having bees around was supposed to ensure that the dead person would live again.’ “My eyes grew wide, “Really?′ ”‘Tell her about Aristaeus,’ Zach said. ”‘Oh, yes, Aristaeus. Every beekeeper should know that story . . . Aristaeus was the first keeper of bees. One day all his bees died, punishment by the gods for something bad that Aristaeus had done. The gods told him to sacrifice a bull to show he was sorry, and then return to the carcass in nine days and look inside it. Well, Aristaeus did just what they said, and when he came back, he saw a swarm of bees fly out of the dead bull. His own bees, reborn. He took them home to his hives, and after that people believed that bees had power over death. The kings in Greece made their tombs in the shape of beehives for that very reason.‘”

“Well if you have a queen and a group of independent-minded bees that split off from the rest of the hive and look for another place to live, then you’ve got a swarm.”

“Most people don’t have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about.”

“Turned on its side, the brick announced a happy bee family, no Ozzie, just Harriet and her ten thousand daughters.”

“July 1, 1964, I lay in bed waiting for the bees to show up, thinking of what Rosaleen had said when I told her about their nightly visitations. ‘Bees swarm before death,’ she’d said.”

“If this was a man’s world, a veil took the rough beard right off. Everything appeared softer, nicer. When I walked behind August in my bee veil, I felt like a moon floating behind a night cloud.”

“Egg laying is the main thing, Lily. She’s the mother of every bee in the hive, and they all depend on her to keep it going. I don’t care what their job is—they know the queen is their mother. She’s the mother of thousands.”

“If I be waspish, best beware my sting.”

“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.”

“It’s a scientific fact that the bumblebee can’t fly, either. But he does, and he makes a lot of honey on the side. And that’s all I intended to be. A bumblebee in Pan Am’s honey hive.”

“Its like bees and honey. Each bee makes only a tiny, tiny drop of honey. It takes thousands of them, millions perhaps, all working together to make the pot of honey you have on your breakfast table. Now imagine that you could eat nothing but honey. That’s what it’s like for my kind of people…we feed on belief, on prayers, on love. It takes a lot of people believing just the tiniest bit to sustain us.”

“He didn’t look where he was sitting and instead of sitting on the nice cool grass in the shade he sat on a bumble bee. Well if you were a bumble bee and a bull sat on you what would you do? You would sting him. And that is just what this bee did to Ferdinand.”

“On with the hunt! I will not rest. I will follow that bee to his honey nest!”

“That is not a honey bee! That was not a honey tree!”

“I think you are very clever, Dad. But your friends the bees are very mad! But Dad! You left the honey there!”

“Where you going to find the honey? Here in the water? Now that seems funny.”

“Bees hide their honey in trees that are hollow. So we will find a bee to follow.”

“The best sort of honey never comes from bees. It comes from the store. I would like some, please.”

“He can go like a bee. Mr Brown can BUZZ. How about you? Can you go BUZZ BUZZ”

“Watch that bee!′ Stanley advised. ‘What bee?’ asked Rhoda. ‘Near your left foot,’ said Stanley. ‘Which is my left?’ asked Rhoda. ‘The one with the freckle,’ said Stanley.”

“Bees in the late summer sun, drone their song of yellow moons. Trimming black velvet, droning, droning a sleepysong. Honeybees are very tricky_ honey doesn’t make them sticky.”

“Just as bees are driven out by smoke, and their honey is taken away from them, so a life of ease drives out the fear of the Lord from man’s soul and takes away all his good works.”

“When the bees’ feet shake the bells of the heather, and the ruddy strings of the sap-stealing dodder are twined about the green spikes of the furze, it is summertime on the commons.”

“I have brought up several hundred young bees this spring and given them lessons for their first flight, but I haven’t come across another one that was as pert and forward as you are. You seem to be an exceptional nature.”

″‘The first rule that a young bee must learn,’ said Cassandra, and sighed, ‘is that every bee in whatever it thinks and does, must be like the other bees and must always have the good of all in mind.‘”

″ ‘Hooray! shouted Yertle. ‘I’m king of the trees! I’m king of the birds! And I’m king of the bees! I’m king of the butterflies! King of the air! Ah, me! What a throne! What a wonderful chair! I’m Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvelous me! For I am the ruler of all that I see!’ ”

“You never can tell with bees.”