Wednesday 8 July 2009

Bees





Took these pics last weekend. I don't know what type of bush or shrub that is. If anyone knows.....?
It's in my garden and flowers miraculously over the space of a few weeks then just as quickly dies away. As soon as it flowers, the bees appear just as miraculously and they absolutely love it. The whole bush was swarming with them when I took these.
I'm growing to like bees, never used to. Still hate wasps though.....



Sylvia Plath - The Arrival Of The Bee Box


I ordered this, clean wood box
Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift.
I would say it was the coffin of a midget
Or a square baby
Were there not such a din in it.

The box is locked, it is dangerous.
I have to live with it overnight
And I can't keep away from it.
There are no windows, so I can't see what is in there.
There is only a little grid, no exit.

I put my eye to the grid.
It is dark, dark,
With the swarmy feeling of African hands
Minute and shrunk for export,
Black on black, angrily clambering.

How can I let them out?
It is the noise that appalls me most of all,
The unintelligible syllables.
It is like a Roman mob,
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!

I lay my ear to furious Latin.
I am not a Caesar.
I have simply ordered a box of maniacs.
They can be sent back.
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.

I wonder how hungry they are.
I wonder if they would forget me
If I just undid the locks and stood back and turned into a tree.
There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades,
And the petticoats of the cherry.

They might ignore me immediately
In my moon suit and funeral veil.
I am no source of honey
So why should they turn on me?
Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.

The box is only temporary.

Sylvia Plath 1932-1963

7 comments:

  1. Hi Neil, I've no idea what your shrub is, but wish I had one. I love bees too, I've got some mason bees living in the wall of my cottage, and spend ages watching them coming in and out removing tiny mounds of sand and then fetching bits of leaves (maybe nest material). Some of the bumble bees in my garden are hugh and some tiny, I think I'll have to get a book on the various types.

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  2. Very nice... bees!

    That a goat's beard you have there, Neil. ;-)

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  3. A Goats Beard eh? Thank you Toaster. New one on me. You know about these things eh?

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  4. Yes I do, Neil and I also know about plants. :-P

    ;-)

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  5. I thought it was Spirea, aka bridal wreath. But i aint gonna argue wi the Toaster.

    Bees rock byrraway, i love em.

    A guy goes into a pet shop and asks to buy a wasp, geezer behind the counter says sorry we don't sell them. Guy goes, you must do, you've got one in yer window.

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  6. Ah the old ones are the best Naldo.

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