Just as the plum blossoms gave way to the apple blossoms earlier this spring, the hawthorns are now passing the nectar-torch to the blackberry blossoms. Yesterday, I took a scratchy walk among the brambles to see whether the bees were on the case and of course they were, gathering pollen and riding this latest nectar-flow wave.
"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
