Yesterday, on my afternoon walk around the pond, I found this sweet girl in the snow. Perhaps the warm day lured her too far from the hive and when the weather chilled, she couldn't make it back. Or perhaps she felt her end was near and ventured from her sister bees into the white abyss with a sense of final purpose. Whatever the story, I hope her end was quick. She was a lovely creature.
"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, which has no intrinsic value. There is more real wealth in a pound of honey, or a load of manure for that matter, than all the currency in the world. We often destroy the world's real wealth to create an illusion of wealth, confusing symbol and substance."—Wm. Longgood, The Queen Must Die
2 comments:
Oh, what a melancholy and sweet post--and a really beautiful photo.
Thanks, Julia. It's always a bit startling, on these days when the ground is unmitigated white, to come upon a fallen bee. But it suggests, at least, that there's still some life in the hives for now. With luck, they'll make it to spring.
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