The Honey-Makers

Half natural history, half literature: how the honey-bee actually works — tongue, wings, sting, swarm — and then three thousand years of what people have believed about her, from the Vedas to mead.

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In Hindu Literature: Spring

Umá is destined to become the bride of Siva, who has become a hermit, and all the forces of Káma, the god of love, his humming bees, his flowery shafts, his companion and helper Spring, are brought to bear upon the stern deity. In the hermit's grove, Spring, wondrous to behold, appears, to turn the hermit from his thoughts on things above. "There grew Love's arrow, his dear mango spray, Winged with young leaves to speed its airy way, And at the call of Spring the wild bees came, Grouping the syllables of Káma's name."

Sweet wanton Spring: - "Who loves to tint his lip, the mango spray, With the fresh colors of the early day, And powder its fine red with many a bee That sips the oozing nectar rapturously." "For there in eager love the wild bee dipped In the dark flower-cup, where his partner sipped." "no dweller of the forest stirred, No wild bee murmured, hushed was every bird."

Surely it would be a strong hermit who could hold out against such forces, and when the lovely Umá herself appeared with her train of maidens the heart of the god was melted within him.

The poet cannot sufficiently express her charms without telling us that- "A greedy bee kept hovering round to sip The fragrant nectar of her blooming lip.

She closed her eyes in terror of the thief And beat him from her with a lotus leaf."

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