Laurie Lee & Cider With Rosie 2015 - Jacob Bronowski - Maurice Maeterlinck - Bees Butterflies and Blooms TV - David Attenborough - Arthur Askey - Richard Dawkins - Isaac Watts - Eddie Izzard - Mary Collier - Albert H Fitz - William Shakespeare - BBC Horizon - Virgil - I Samuel 14:43 - Proverbs 24:13 - Proverbs 25:16&27 - Koran 16:68&69 - Muhammad Ali & Bo Deeney - What the Green Movement Got Wrong TV - A A Milne - Invasion of the Bill Girls 1973 - Monty Python’s Flying Circus TV - The Nice Guys 2016 - Cities: Nature’s New Wild TV - In Search of … TV - MonsterQuest TV - The Beekeeper 2024 -
Bees blew like cake-crumbs through the golden air, white butterflies like sugared wafers, and when it wasn't raining a diamond dust took over which veiled and yet magnified all things. Laurie Lee, Cider with Rosie
The chatter of haymakers drifted on waves of air from the fields humming with the blundering bees and flickering with the scarlet butterflies. Cider with Rosie ***** 2015 starring Samantha Mortin & Archie Cox & Ruby Ashbourne Serkis & Emma Curtis & Jessica Hynes & June Whitfield & Annette Crosbie & Timothy Spall & Billy Howle & Georgie Smith et al, director Philippa Lowthorpe, BBC 2015
The child is not a prisoner of its inheritance ... The child is an individual, the bee is not. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 12/13: Generation Upon Generation, BBC 1973
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
Our bees, butterflies and pollinating insects are dying out. This giant insect workforce pollinates our crops. Bees, Butterflies and Blooms, BBC 2012
Not all wasps and bees are social. David Attenborough, Life on Earth IV: The Swarming Hordes, BBC 1979
Bees’ wax: the workers secrete it from glands on their abdomen. David Attenborough, The Trials of Life VI: Home Making, BBC 1990
There are the Giant Asiatic Bees – the biggest of all honey-bees. David Attenborough, Life in the Undergrowth V: Supersocieties, BBC 2005
Carpenter Bees are still the main pollinators on the islands. And the plants have adapted accordingly. David Attenborough’s Galapagos: Origin, BBC 2013
Bumble bees: there are about two hundred species of them. David Attenborough, Micro Monsters V: Family, 2013
Two animals that owe their existence to human interference: killer bees that were created accidentally when a well-meaning breeding experiment went wrong and Pizzly bears – the result of polar bears and brown bears interbreeding. Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities s4e1: Animal Frankensteins, BBC 2017
The temperament of a bee colony is determined by that the queen bee. ibid.
Bzz buzz honey bee honey bee. Arthur Askey, song
To make a one-pound jar of honey it’s been worked out the bees would have to visit about ten million clover blossoms. Dr Richard Dawkins, lecture 4, ‘The Ultraviolet Garden’
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower! Isaac Watts, 1674-1748
Bee-keepers must lose it occasionally. You know, you’re there, you’ve got the netting, you’ve two-thousand bees – bzzzzz grrrr – and essentially you’re trying to steal honey. Hzzzzz. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Hello. Knock knock. Hello. Look, there’s a Ferrari over there. Can you see the Ferrari? Eddie Izard, on stage
So the industrious bees do hourly strive
To bring their loads of honey to the hive;
Their sordid owners always reap the gains,
And poorly recompense their toils and pains. Mary Collier 1690-1762, The Woman’s Labour, 1719
You are the honey, honeysuckle; I am the bee. Albert H Fitz, The Honeysuckle and the Bee, 1901
For so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom. William Shakespeare, Henry V I ii 187
An attempt to understand what is happening to our bees. It’s the biggest mystery to hit the countryside in living memory. Bees are dying in their droves, and we don’t know why. Horizon: What’s Killing Our Bees? BBC 2013
The only insect to provide us with food. ibid.
Suspect #1: The Varroa Mite … it can be utterly devastating … you can see what could be the real culprit: a virus. ibid.
Varroa only affects honey bees … It only arrived here twenty years ago. ibid.
Suspect #2: Pesticides … A huge controversy. ibid.
Urban environments are bucking the trend when it comes to the declining bee. ibid.
Suspect #3: Changing environments … ‘A green desert’. ibid.
Their little bodies lodge a mighty soul. Virgil
Then Saul said to Jonathan, Tell me what thou hast done. And Jonathan told him, and said, I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in mine hand, and, lo, I must die. I Samuel 14:43
My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste: Proverbs 24:13
Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.
It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory. Proverbs 25:16&27
And thy Lord inspired the bee, saying: Choose thou habitations in the hills and in the trees and in that which they thatch;
Then eat of all fruits, and follow the ways of thy Lord, made smooth (for thee). There cometh forth from their bellies a drink divers of hues, wherein is healing for mankind. Lo! Herein is indeed a portent for people who reflect. Koran 16:68&69
Bo Deeney: You’re going to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
Together: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Bo Deeney: Rumble, young man, rumble.
Together: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Muhammad Ali: That’s what we’re gonna do. You heard it. That’s my trainer – he’ll tell ya.
In the early 1960s just before the environmental movement took off zoologist Rachel Carson wrote a book saying that pesticides were killing wild birds and were potentially harmful to humans. The book became an international best-seller – Silent Spring. What the Green Movement Got Wrong, Channel 4 2010
‘If there’s a buzzing-noise, somebody’s making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a bee.’
Then he thought another long time, and said: ‘And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.’
And then he got up, and said: ‘And the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it.’ A A Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
The Pentagon likes to keep its eye on government-sponsored research facilities like Brandt. Invasion of the Bee Girls 1973 starring William Smith & Anitra Ford & Victoria Vetri & Cliff Osmond & Wright Knight & Ben Hammer & Anna Aries & Andre Philippe & Sid Kaiser & Katie A Saylor & William Keller & Beverly Powers et al, director Denis Sanders, rozzer
We have to find ways to amuse ourselves. We never really get a chance to get down to LA. There’s a lot of sex games on go, wife-swapping and a lot of related nonsense. Scientists really aren’t any different from humankind. Just more inventive, that’s all. ibid.
Icelandic Honey Week. Monty Python’s Flying Circus s4e6, BBC 1974