Henry David Thoreau Quotes

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.

It's wonderful to me that bees have this simple, age-old thing going on.

A bee is never as busy as it seems; it's just that it can't buzz any slower.

I always feel that I have missed some good fortune if I am away from home when my bees swarm. What a delightful summer sound it is! How they come pouring out of the hive, twenty or thirty thousand bees, each striving to get out first!

Beekeeping is farming for intellectuals.

All I knew about bees when I started to write 'The Secret Life of Bees' was that they can live in a wall of your house, and that they make this incredible thing that I loved.

When you hear buzz around the beehive, you know they're making honey in there.

I don't mind bees and think we are all the better for having them around. I like the taste of honey.

Bees are easier to keep than a dog or a cat. They are more interesting than gerbils. They can be kept anywhere.

Everyone should have two or three hives of bees.

No beehive. Beehives - we sort of put them - well, we revive them sometimes.

My bees cover one thousand square miles of land that I do not own in their foraging flights, flying from flower to flower for which I pay no rent, stealing nectar but pollinating plants in return.

My elder son and his wife keep bees, and my younger son has bees, too.

For a long, long time, nearly 40 years, I never had any bees. I can't think why.

Then there is that other appeal, the stronger one, of spending, during certain parts of the year, a ten- or twelve- hour working day with bees, which are, when all is said and done, simply a bunch of bugs. But spending my days in close and intimate contact with creatures who are structured so differently from humans, and who get on with life in such a different way, is like being a visitor in an alien but ineffably engaging world.

How to extract its honey from the flower of the world. That is my everyday business. I am as busy as a bee about it. I ramble over fields on that errand and am never so happy as when I feel myself heavy with honey and wax. I am like a bee searching the livelong day for the sweets of nature.

Actually, every human being should show the greatest interest in this subject, because, much more than you can imagine, our lives depend upon beekeeping.

The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.

I was named Beekeeper of the Year by the Florida State Beekeeping Association.

People say if bees die out, the world would end, apparently. Now, I don't know if that's true, if that's some bee enthusiast who managed to write a good document, and people believe this.

I can't pick a favorite animal; I love so many! But I guess if I have to choose, I pick bees! There's this brilliant documentary called 'Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?' I think it's important for people to be educated about bees - they pollinate almost all the food we eat. They are amazing!

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

If a queen bee were crossed with a Friesian bull, would not the land flow with milk and honey?

A brier rose whose buds yield fragrant harvest for the honey bee.