Happy Friday to You

Thanks very kindly for reading our new blog and following us on Facebook, where the blog feed shows up on our Hands off Bees page. Several people have just started reading/following us this week--hello and many thanks!

You may not know that in addition to being a fan of bees, I write poetry about bees. (My day job is teaching English at a community college.) Trish suggested that I share a bee poem of mine to end the week, so here's one that also appeared in the literary magazine, Softblow. The title is the scientific name for the European honeybee.

Apis Mellifera

From the Latin for honey-carrier,
from the Greek for healer,

bees may fly six hundred miles
if not squashed, sprayed with insecticide

eaten, or killed by disease. Worn-out
worker bees will die in about

six weeks and must quickly
be replaced if the colony will take

all the pollen and nectar of summer.