The delightful novel "The Bees" by Laline Paull features bees and the life of a hive, anthropomorphized enough that you relate to their anxiety when they can't find blooms and their concern for healthy hatchlings. It feels true, in a way, with real behaviors of bees turned into plot elements in the life of Flora 717, a worker bee of unusual size and strength.
Both before and after reading it I encountered a variety of poems about these industrious producers of sticky sweetness. Sometimes they appear in passing, bumbling from flower to flower. Sometimes their activities and their sweet product serve as the entire focus. Since every bite of food we eat relies on these and other pollinators, they deserve a hive full of poetry.
Lo and behold, that hive already exists! I discovered If Bees Are Few: A Hive of Bee Poems thanks to American Life in Poetry mentioning it in the intro to the Naomi Shihab Nye and Linda Pastan poems linked here. That collection goes back 2,500 years, whereas my tastes run to contemporary poetry. If these poems give you a taste and leave you wanting more, maybe you want to track down a copy in the used book market.
I grew up in a house that had a couple of giant honey locust trees in the far corner of the property, past the big garden. One of them held the "Freehouse Treehouse" my brothers built for my younger sister and me, and I remember climbing up through the scented sweetness with bees buzzing all around. That made the first poem by Mary Oliver a must-include for this list.
At the end of the collection I list some actions you can take to help bees. We rely on them (and other pollinators) for our entire food supply so it's in our best interest to care about the bees.
"Honey Locust" by Mary Oliver
The bees circle the tree and dive into it. They are crazy
with gratitude. They are working like farmers. They are as
happy as saints.
"Honey" by Robert Morgan
....If you go near bees
every day they will know you.
And never jerk or turn so quick
you excite them.
"Playing with Bees" by RK Fauth
all the strong words in poems,
they were once
smeared on the mandible of a bee
"Appetite" by Paulann Peterson
Between your teeth
is the blown flower and the flower's
seed.
"Honey" by Connie Wanek
Luxury itself, thick as a Persian carpet,
honey fills the jar
with the concentrated sweetness
of countless thefts,
the blossoms bereft, the hive destitute.
"As You Fall Awake" by Laura Ann Reed
as bees
thrust their passion
deep into the promise
of tiny crimson-purple
blooms.
"Instructions to the Worker Bee" by Lucy Adkins
It's not just about pollen or nectar,
the honey that eventually comes,
but the tingle of leg hair
against petal, against pistil and stamen,
"Robbing the Bees" by Carrie Green
But today the scent of orange blossom
reaches our patch of sand, and the beeyard
teems with thieving wings.
"Bees Were Better" by Naomi Shihab Nye
Bees had radar in their wings and brains
that humans could barely understand.
I wrote a paper proclaiming
their brilliance and superiority
"The Death of the Bee" by Linda Pastan
Soon the buzzing
plainchant of summer
will be silenced
for good;
the flowers, unkindled
will blaze
one last time
and go out.
"April in the Ruins" by H.R. Kent
something is happening up at the pueblo—
bees are pouring out of the cave-roof bedrock
a thick smoke of thousands, shooting
the queen and prince of drones
higher and higher in a ball.
"The Water Carriers" by Angelo Giambra
On hot days we would see them
leaving the hive in swarms. June and I
would watch them weave their way
through the sugarberry trees toward the pond
where they would stop to take a drink,
then buzz their way back, plump and full of water,
to drop it on the backs of the fanning bees.
Five things you can do to help save the bees
- Create pollinator habitat. This can be as small as a pot of blooming flowers on an apartment balcony, as big as an entire yard turned over to naturescaping principles (landscaping for wildlife, birds, insects and water conservation).
- Check in with the County Extension office in your county if you're in the United States and they'll be able to provide information. Extension offices are part of the land grant university mission and are an amazing resource for many topics from gardening to nutrition to forestry and much, much more.
- Pollinator Partnership also has free ecoregion planting guides for habitat in the US and Canada. I'm in the Pacific Lowland Mixed Forest habitat.
- Buy local honey. While honeybees are a non-native European import (400 years ago), if you're going to eat honey anyway then local honey doesn't have to travel as far to get to your morning biscuits.
- Eat organic food if you can afford to do so; pesticides and herbicides harm pollinators.
- Donate to nonprofits and universities doing research and supporting pollinators.
- Ask your city, county, and state departments of transportation, roads or public works to provide pollinator habitat when they choose plants. Public right-of-way makes up a big chunk of the town you live in. As they decide which trees to plant, where to put in shrubs and plants to help hold soil on a hillside, they can choose native plants and provide habitat. I work for a state DOT doing just that. Maybe your state already does this, maybe they need some encouragement.
Bee conservancy projects, nonprofits, and university research can all benefit from your donations.
- Washington State University bee research: My alma mater is conducting valuable research and has a new facility in Othello, in the heart of central Washington's agriculture. Live in another state? Check out your state land grant university; they may have a similar program.
- Heifer International: Contribute to small-scale farming productivity in 19 countries around the world by helping someone become a beekeeper
- Nine Best Nonprofits that Help Save Bees: List compiled by Impactful Ninja
