The bee is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly;
The pretty people in the woods
Receive me cordially.

The brooks laugh louder when I come, The breezes madder play.
Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists? Wherefore, O summer’s day?

~Emily Dickinson

Aside from the lovely magic of “the pretty people in the woods” (faeries? elves?? certainly something magical!), I love this poem because it is one of Emily’s many, many bee-related ones. She must have adored bees. She writes about them often.

For several years, I kept honeybees–until they all died off one recent awful winter. I have been beeless for a couple of years now, and the orchard looks desolate without their hives, the clovers abandoned without their small ceaseless thrumming.

But!

Bees are coming!

I am getting bees again!

So if you are not a bee fan, you might want to avoid this space for a while, because Emily and I are all about the bees.