Dear Reader:

At the beginning of each chapter of Karen White’s latest summer novel, Flight Patterns, she has a quote about bees that parallel the life of one or more of the characters in that particular chapter. It was interesting to see how she was going to connect the quote to the story through each individual section…

In the first chapter the quote read:” The bee collects honey from flowers in such a way as to do the least damage or destruction to them, and he leaves them whole, undamaged and fresh, just as he found them.” St. Francis de Sales

How true! As I was watering the garden…I suddenly heard the drone of several bees… and an infrequent yellow butterfly would flit by… but didn’t seem to have much of an inclination to perch, but for a second or two, on each blossom. It must not have been a good shopping day for the butterflies.

Not so with the bees. This little fella was so engrossed in his endeavor that he never looked up…even as I got closer and closer. In fact he looked like he was posing for a photo session. He kept going around and around the stems as if to allow me a better shot of him…his best side, I suppose..

…And exactly like what the earlier quote said… he never disturbed the stems or blooms. A good neighbor!

Suddenly I realized that very subtly my butterfly (and bee) bushes had started blooming with lots of delicious treats for nature’s flying creatures. It made me  happy to know that I was and am providing nourishment and a place of refuge for the busy bees and butterflies.

There once was (and in some cases still practiced) an old English ritual of “telling the bees.” Today we think nothing of talking to and confiding in our pets, mainly dogs and cats….but bees?

The old traditional English custom, in which bees would be told of important events in their keepers’ lives, was thought to establish a special bond between insect and man. Deaths of keepers or members of the keeper’s family were always relayed on to the hive. In fact, the hives would be draped in black as they were told the name of the diseased.

If this information was not forthcoming, custom predicted that the bees might leave their hives, stop producing honey, or die themselves.

Today we are besieged by man and animal stories in the news and on animal programs that leave no doubt  the relationship and response between animal and man is much closer in similarity that once thought. We share the same joys and sorrows in life. ..together. We are all God’s creatures.

So until tomorrow…May we become good stewards of nature like the bees…taking only what we need and not leaving destruction behind us, but simply participating in the way Creation provided.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Monday night, around 8:30 I checked on the garden and saw a beautiful moon flower blooming against the fence….intermingled with drooping morning glories. Above, the moon shone brightly down on the yard casting shadows on the last stream of light quickly disappearing.

Between the beauty of the moon and moon flower it was an exhilarating moment to end the day.