AN ODE TO BEES

photograph: S Rae

There are some 270 species of bee in Britain. They pollinate our flowers and crops, they give us honey, and their humming is the soundtrack of summer. And they are things of beauty. Here is my ode to our bees. ****

---

The bees flew when Stonehenge was built, when hay meadows were scythed by Rome’s woad-tattooed slaves. Bees hovered in the marsh flowers when Anglo-Saxon warriors formed the shield wall at Maldon. The bees were there when lords and ladies courted in the luxuriant flowery meads of castles, and, democratically, the bees were there in the Didcot back garden of the Edwardian railway worker tying up his runner beans.

Bees have ever been part of the British scene. Mead, made from honey, was the drink of Beowulf. Honey was medieval cure for ague and pox (and, in a reinvention of the wheel, it is a current treatment in NHS hospitals for diseased skin). Honey was a treat for plain bread. ‘And is there honey still for tea?’ asked Rupert Brooke in ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’, as he dreamed of England from abroad in 1912. Before sugar honey was the only sweetness.