Beekeeping Quotes

“I like pulling on a baggy bee suit, forgetting myself and getting as close to the bees' lives as they will let me, remembering in the process that there is more to life than the merely human.”
― Sue Hubbell, A Book Of Bees: And How to Keep Them

“This must be
what love is:

a pain so radiant
it cuts through all others.”
― Sara Eliza Johnson, Bone Map: Poems

“The only time I ever believed that I knew all there was to know about beekeeping was the first year I was keeping them. Every year since I’ve known less and less and have accepted the humbling truth that bees know more about making honey than I do.”
― Sue Hubbell, A Book Of Bees: And How to Keep Them

“Beekeeping is the world’s second oldest profession. The first apiarists were the ancient Egyptians. Bees were royal symbols, the tears of Re, the sun god.

In Greek mythology, Aristaeus, the god of beekeeping, was taught by nymphs to tend bees.

The Bible promises a land of milk and honey. The Koran says paradise has rivers of honey for those who guard against evil. Krishna, the Hindu deity, is often shown with a blue bee on his forehead. The bee itself is considered a symbol of Christ: the sting of Justice and mercy of honey, side by side.

The first voodoo dolls were molded from beeswax; an oungan might tell you to smear honey on a person to keep ghosts at bay; a manbo would make little cakes of honey, amaranth, and whiskey, which, eaten before the new moon, could show you your future.

Sometimes I wonder which of my prehistoric ancestors first stuck his arm into a hole in a tree. Did he come out with a handful of honey, or a fistful of stings? Is the promise of one worth the risk of the other?”
― Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, Mad Honey

“My father taught me that beekeeping is both a burden and a privilege. You don’t bother the bees unless they need your help, and you help them when they need it. It’s a feudal relationship: protection in return for a percentage of the fruits of their labors.

He taught me that if a body is easily crushed, it develops a weapon to prevent that from happening.

He taught me that sudden movements get you stung.

I took these lessons a bit too much to heart.”
― Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, Mad Honey

“I first felt myself a shaky axis between worlds when I watched my grandfather move those prophetic queens.”
― S. Kelley Harrell, The Spirit of a Woman: Stories to Empower and Inspire

“...she’d found she couldn’t bring herself to kill any of her bees, which was the system all the northern demesnes used, and so had to get them through the winter somehow. She’d been cold that winter herself, after wrapping up her most exposed hives in all the blankets she had.”
― Robin McKinley, Chalice

“But her curiosity got the better of her and at last she went back to where she’d left a big shallow basin of milk only the day before…and found the surface of the milk invisible under a carpet of her bees. “Bees don’t drink milk,” she said to them. When they lifted and flew away the basin was empty and clean.”
― Robin McKinley, Chalice

“it was nearly dawn, and the hill was white with snow. She was covered with a thick blanket of bees, and the snow lay upon them in bright broken spangles. She sat up in distress— bees cannot survive hard cold outside their hives— but they seemed to shake themselves...”
― Robin McKinley, Chalice

“...when I offered to either stay and help or go bake a pie, it was the pie that was most needed. It took six pies to finish the roof. I had not known that pies were such an important part of construction.”
― Sue Hubbell, A Country Year: Living the Questions

“If neonicotinoids are the answer, what was the question?”
― June Stoyer

“On one occasion, an ancient great-aunt of mine, hieratically assuming a head-dress of feather and globules of jet, required me to accompany her to the beehives. ‘But you surely don't need a hat, Aunt Jane! They're only at the end of the garden.’ ‘It is the custom,’ she said, grandly. ‘Put a scarf over your head.’ Arrived, she stood in silence for a moment. Then — ‘I have to tell you,’ she said, formally, ‘that King George V is dead. You may be sorry, but I am not. He was not an interesting man. Besides,’ she added — as though the bees needed the telling! — ‘everyone has to die’.”
― P.L. Travers, What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol and Story

“I don’t remember the particulars but when he [Dr. Hichiro Shimanuki, aka ‘Shim’] was nearly finished he offered an observation that was, for the most part, missed by the majority of those present. … Answers and dogma, went the feeling, saves bees, money, and time. … Shim’s observations were, however, profound, and any beekeeper who listened carefully to his challenge is probably doing quite well today.

Basically, his observation was this: He called it the Rule of Rights. — If you produce the right number of bees that are the right age and the right condition, and are in the right place at the right time, you will be successful.

The complexity of achieving this goal is well hidden in the simplicity of his statement. But to accomplish this requires making intelligent and correct decisions based on sound planning, correct timing, and getting the balance of business and biology to work in an operation. There’s little how-to hidden within this simple statement. Rather, it is a goal to strive for in many ways. It is, in the real world, not easy and it is not often that it will be achieved.

[From the ‘Introduction.’]”
― Kim Flottum, Better Beekeeping: The Ultimate Guide to Keeping Stronger Colonies and Healthier, More Productive Bees

“The honeybee, Apis mellifera, is a species on the cusp of culture and nature … If we’re to seriously improve honeybee health and with it our own wellbeing, we need to make the most of this timely opportunity to realise a more interconnected approach to agriculture and ecology.”
― Sarah Waring, Farming for the Landless: New perspectives on the cultivation of our honeybee

“When you are taking care of bees, being able to protect yourself from their stings is crucial to working in comfort and with great efficiency. A beekeeper suit, often just called a bee suit, is the best way to protect your body from the bees from head to toe when you are working in the hives or collecting the honey.”
― Buzzing Bee