BEES QUOTES III

quotations about bees

Here again we touch one of the thousand enigmas of the waxen city; and it is once more proved to us that the habits and the policy of the bees are by no means narrow, or rigidly predetermined; and that their actions have motives far more complex than we are inclined to suppose.

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

The Life of the Bee


But when was ever honey made
With one bee in a hive?

THOMAS HOOD

The Last Man


The bees got their governmental system settled millions of years ago, but the human race is still groping.

DON MARQUIS

Archy and Mehitabel


Here ever hum the golden bees
Underneath full-blossomed trees.

J.R. LOWELL

The Sirens


Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still.

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men


Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing,
Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;
And being once subdued in armed tail,
Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Troilus and Cressida


Bees work for man, and yet they never bruise
Their Master's flower, but leave it, having done,
As fair as ever and as fit to use;
So both the flower doth stay, and honey run.

GEORGE HERBERT

Providence


Honey is sweet, but the bee stings.

GEORGE HERBERT

Jacula Prudentum


The little bee returns with evening's gloom,
To join her comrades in the braided hive,
Where, housed beside their mighty honey-comb,
They dream their polity shall long survive.

C.T. TURNER

Summer Night in the Bee Hive


How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

ISAAC WATTS

Against Idleness


For the bee, honey is the ultimate reality. It represents the fulfillment of her life mission, the triumph over her enemies, the continuity of the hive, the justification for working herself to death. Honey is to bees what money in the bank is to people--a measure of prosperity and well-being. But there is nothing abstract or symbolic about honey, as there is about money.

WILLIAM LONGGOOD & PAMELA JOHNSON

The Queen Must Die: And Other Affairs of Bees and Men


The more I learned about pollinators, the more interested I became in the Queen of pollination: the 20,000 species of bees worldwide that are largely responsible for the seeds of rebirth of three-quarters of the flowering plants in the world. I discovered that assuming, as most people do, that "bee" equals "stinging honey bee" was even more ludicrous than assuming "dog" equals itty bitty Chihuahua.

PAIGE EMBRY

Our Native Bees: North America's Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them


The careful insect 'midst his works I view,
Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew,
With golden treasures load his little thighs,
And steer his distant journey through the skies.

JOHN GAY

Rural Sports


So sudden
The bees
They came flying
So violent
The bees
They came sly
So scary
The bees
They came wide
So wild
The bees
They came
crying
They said: "I take my time"
You take your time
Please take your time
I take my time
I take my time

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE

"Bees"


And we had sugar of our own,
Ages before its name was known.
Those early homes 'neath forest trees,
Were ever musical with bees.

THOMAS MILLER

Birds, Bees, and Blossoms


God's little epigrams, the Bees,
Are pointed and impartial.
Could Martial rival one of these?
No, not even Martial.

RICHARD R. KIRKE

The Bees


Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Tempest


My banks they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE

A Pastoral Ballad


A comely old man as busy as a bee.

JOHN LYLY

Euphues and His England


Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breeched philosopher!
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,
Thou dost mock at fate and care,
Leave the chaff and take the wheat.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

"The Humble-Bee"