I recently came across a thought provoking verse, The Last Bee by Brian Bilston. The poet has very cleverly raised awareness about the importance of the bees by writing a poem about the significance of bees and then removing the alphabet ‘B’ from all words in his verse. I want to share this with all members and readers.

Bilston wrote it as below:

THE LAST EE

y rian ilston

After the last ee

had uzzed its last uzz,

the irds and the utterflies

did what they could.

ut soon the fields lay are,

few flowers were left,

nature was roken,

and the planet ereft.

 

Let’s see what went missing here… All the Bs are missing from the dotted spaces!

THE LAST …EE

…y …rian …ilston

After the last …ee

had …uzzed its last …uzz,

the …irds and the …utterflies

did what they could.

…ut soon the fields lay …are,

few flowers were left,

nature was …roken,

and the planet …ereft.

 

The complete verse as it should be is as below:

THE LAST BEE

By Brian Bilston

After the last bee

had buzzed its last buzz,

the birds and the butterflies

did what they could.

but soon the fields lay bare,

few flowers were left,

nature was broken,

and the planet bereft.

It seems there was a time when rural beekeepers in Britain followed a peculiar tradition of “telling the bees”. The practice had its origin in Celtic mythology belief that bees were the link between us and the spirits. Bees were informed about all important family matters including births, deaths, marriages, long absence due to journeys and so on… The head of the family or the wife would go to the hives, knock to catch the bees’ attention, and convey the news. It was believed that if bees were not informed of family happenings, ill luck would befall on the family.

Verses such as below are a part of old cultures singing to bees:

Superstition aside, there is no denying the relationship between bees and humans, considering that the survival of humans depends on bees. Pollination by bees yields 70 of the major 100 food crop species that feed 90% of humankind. Without bees, these plants would die creating a catastrophic effect up the food chain. I am deliberately keeping this free report light and creative rather than cramming it with facts and statistics as sometimes a simple creative tool can deliver a message that a long essay struggles to convey!

I have always found this topic an issue of grave importance considering the threat that bees are facing due to human activities. Below are the links to two of my earlier posts on bees and their significance.

https://tunza.eco-generation.org/resourcesView.jsp?boardID=worldReport&viewID=3501&searchType=&searchName=&pageNumber=400

https://tunza.eco-generation.org/worldReportView.jsp?viewID=3516

Let us learn from the old traditions of ‘telling the bees’, and understand the dependence of human lives as well as lives of many other members of the animal kingdom on the bees. Whether we talk to the bees or not, preserving them is elementary to the survival of life on our planet.

Sources, references and image credits

https://brianbilston.com/2019/05/26/the-last-bee/