I peek into wherewe keep them too weak nowbut to lean in nearly kneelingat worship only cleared tospeak of them in these newsleaks & hearsay I’ve had to swearoff from honeyed lips Mark DeCarteret has been working at Water Street Books in Exeter NH for 10 years. Worked at StroudwaterContinue Reading

Such buzz the honey bee:small wonder Miles Davislived in a bee-loud glenwhen he played his hornlet his wings vibratefrom bee balmto marsh blazing star. John Davis is a polio survivor and the author of Gigs and The Reservist. His work has appeared recently in DMQ Review, Iron Horse Literary Review,Continue Reading

I walked in my house stuffed with honey…Those hands are filled with my own honeycombs… I filled my jars with my own orange marmalade. My beehive was swarmed with nectar… Their juice and nutritions are nothing,My bees love me but I was a mere hobby beekeeper in my heart… IContinue Reading

Your brother posted a pictureof his tattooed arm: a stenciledhoneycomb, black hexagonsinked around his flexed bicep,a math equation written in your handin a space between joined cells.He said this tattoo commemoratedyour birthday one year after your death.I live six hundred miles away. I’ve never shownmy bee poems to him, orContinue Reading

A billowing plume of dust raged across the sprawling grassland. Darkness gripped the sky as the black blizzard waged onward towards the Oklahoma expanse. Since 1930, the swirling storm of dust and dirt has cascaded over fertile farmland, devastating crops and ways of life across Boise City. With an absenceContinue Reading

Fascinated all my life by acrobatic bees,and honey-dependent, I wanted to writea poem about them, then realizedthat my elusive subject was right under my nose,literally, in and out of the hollow red cedar treeat the center of our Sarasota condo complex:a swarm of 150,000 bees moved in practicingtheir circus actsContinue Reading

Here is the light he was born intofragile green glowalready in wind and leavesday winding downTo open a tunnel of airTo hover above the cloverhomeless in lovewith the touch of earthTo waver in brush and weedsInvincible flit of flight John Davis is a polio survivor and the author of GigsContinue Reading

“To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!” — Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass Ada is naked, kneeling among the fennel of their front yard garden. The Evening rises balmy, still, golden with pollen lit by an ebbing sun.Ada is toiling in their garden of fennel,Continue Reading

Nurse bees are a special breed of workershatched by some unknown alchemyinto nurturing roles. They feed the needybees’ bread, honey and pollen mixedwith royal jelly secreted by their own bodies.Nurses visit often, examinelarvae deprived of food, give moreto those who signal the most distress. Nurse sisters. Duty-bound by natureto sweetenContinue Reading

The Scene: A small Bavarian town in the Georgian EraThe Players:Georgina, the youngest sisterPhillipa, the middle sisterFredericka, the oldest sisterThe Ants of a HillSome DucksA Hive of Bees and their QueenThree prince brothers, who all looked exactly alike Phillipa and Edwina laid on a blanket in a field overlooking theContinue Reading