Bees Knees....

 “If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.” 
― Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee

 “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.” 
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

 “The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.” 
― Henry David Thoreau

 “The bee is domesticated but not tamed.” ― William Longgood

 “A big bee, a golden furry fellow, crept into a freesia, and the delicate flower leaned over, swung, shook; and when the bee flew away it fluttered still as though it were laughing. Happy, careless flower!” 
― Katherine Mansfield

 “If bees die, people will die. Only ignorance never dies! ("Why step out of nature ?")” 
― Erik Pevernagie

 “If bees only gathered nectar from perfect flowers, they wouldn’t be able to make even a single drop of honey.” 
― Matshona Dhliwayo

 “bees are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them.” 
― Carol Ann Duffy, The Bees

 “The only sounds here were lazy, ponderous, gentle sounds. A bee hung low in the warm afternoon haze, and he watched it unafraid, listened to the dull electric razor sound of its wings cutting the air. Birds sang sweet and unseen, and a hundred eyes watched him from the dark.” 
― Michael Montoure, Slices

 “Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.” 
                                                                           ― John Muir

 Photographs 2017