Bees give us a real buzz!

“Words are like bees, they bring both honey and a sting.”
-Talmud

Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894) was one of the few poets who was fascinated by the bee. In her popular poem entitled ‘What does the bee do?’ she wrote a few lines that remain immortal in English literature:

“What does the bee do?
What does the bee do?
 

Bring home honey.
And what does Father do?
Bring home money.
And what does Mother do?
Lay out the money.
And what does baby do?
Eat up the honey.”

Although Christina Rossetti was fascinated by the yellow and black flying insect which makes honey and sometimes stings, some of us take the bee for granted. Even the caveman knew the importance of the bee that gathered nectar and finally made honey. He knew how to gather honey, raiding beehives in hollow tree-trunks. Today civilised men smoke out the bees from their beehives and take away the honey for various purposes. The ancient Germans used honey to sweeten their alcoholic drinks. Today Ayurveda physicians use honey in most of their medicinal preparations.

Honey

Although we cherish honey, the nectar passes through the stomachs of hundreds of bees. In the long process, water is removed and enzymes and proteins from the bee’s own body are added to it. Bees use their wings to fan air continuously to dry the honey. This is supposed to be a highly effective ventilation system.

It is the nectar collected from flowers that gets gradually transformed into honey. Although we can buy a bottle of honey over the counter, thousands of bees take part in the collection and transportation of the raw material covering a vast area. Nobody knows how many kilometres they cover to collect a drop of nectar. What is more, the stomach of the bee is relatively small. It can hold only about six hundredths of a gram of nectar. It is strange but true that bees in a colony work for about 35 hours a week collecting nectar and processing it. What is great about them is that they do not complain or ask for higher wages!

A worker bee has to work throughout the day, changing his roles every now and then. At first it works as a cleaner and then becomes a nurse. His next role will be that of a lady-in-waiting. Soon it becomes a warehouse worker, wax producer, structural engineer, food chemist, intelligence agent and sometimes a dancer!

Lucrative business

In most countries bee-keeping is a lucrative business. As a result of the diminishing forest cover, man has turned to bee-keeping and producing honey using modern methods. Once a wag said that bee-keepers are like pimps because they make others toil for them! However, bee-keepers should not be downgraded or stung by such waspish remarks. In fact, bees have nothing in common with the practitioners of the world’s oldest profession.

Most of us may not be aware that the bee is a symbol of chastity and purity. In the Middle Ages (1000 AD - 1500 AD) the bee was the symbol of Virgin Birth. According to an ancient manuscript “Only foolish women and drunkards are stung by bees. They spare the good people who do not smell or swear.”

Bees have fascinated philosophers such as Aristotle and numerous poets. No other flying insect has fascinated us like the small, six-legged bee whose hard work is taken away by four-legged bears and two-legged featherless bipeds.

Make a beeline

Bees have enriched the English language to a great extent. For instance, if you say that something or somebody is the bee’s knees, you say in a light-heated way that you like them a great deal.

Sometimes you have a bee in your bonnet when you feel very strongly about something and keep talking or thinking about it. Two images are suggested by the expression. The first is of thoughts buzzing inside your head like bees. The second is of somebody who has a bee trapped in their hat being anxious to get it out before they are stung. Sometimes we make a beeline for something. It is believed that bees, having collected the pollen, fly back to the hive in a straight line. However, this belief has been proved to be incorrect.

The beehive is a container shaped like a box in which bees are kept so that their nectar can be collected. Sometimes a woman’s hairstyle in which the hair is arranged in a pile high on her head is also called a ‘beehive’. At parties some young men make a beeline for the prettiest woman who sports a beehive hairstyle!