Sting Like A Bee Quotes

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can't hit what the eyes can't see.

Nobody around here had ever seen a lady beekeeper till her. She liked to tell everybody that women made the best beekeepers, 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting. It comes from years of loving children and husbands.

The days aren't discarded or collected, they are bees that burned with sweetness or maddened the sting: the struggle continues, the journeys go and come between honey and pain. No, the net of years doesn't unweave: there is no net. They don't fall drop by drop from a river: there is no river. Sleep doesn't divide life into halves, or action, or silence, or honor: life is like a stone, a single motion, a lonesome bonfire reflected on the leaves, an arrow, only one, slow or swift, a metal that climbs or descends burning in your bones.

I hadn't been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called 'bee yard etiquette'. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.

Like the bee, we distill poison from honey for our self-defense--what happens to the bee if it uses its sting is well known.

Are You Ready for New Urban Fragrances? Yeah, I guess I'm ready, but listen: Perfume is a disguise. Since the middle ages, we have worn masks of fruit and flowers in order to conceal from ourselves the meaty essence of our humanity. We appreciate the sexual attractant of the rose, the ripeness of the orange, more than we honor our own ripe carnality. Now today we want to perfume our cities, as well; to replace their stinging fumes of disturbed fossils' sleep with the scent of gardens and orchards. Yet, humans are not bees any more than they are blossoms. If we must pull an olfactory hood over our urban environment, let it be of a different nature. I want to travel on a train that smells like snowflakes. I want to sip in cafes that smell like comets. Under the pressure of my step, I want the streets to emit the precise odor of a diamond necklace. I want the newspapers I read to smell like the violins left in pawnshops by weeping hobos on Christmas Eve. I want to carry luggage that reeks of the neurons in Einstein's brain. I want a city's gases to smell like the golden belly hairs of the gods. And when I gaze at a televised picture of the moon, I want to detect, from a distance of 239,000 miles, the aroma of fresh mozzarella.

Some guys like to undermine a girl's self-esteem with little verbal jabs. Eventually it all adds up. One bee sting doesn't hurt a horse, but enough bee stings can kill a horse.

Such bees! Bilbo had never seen anything like them. "If one were to sting me," He thought "I should swell up as big as I am!

She liked to tell everyone that women make the best beekeepers, 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting.

...The world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.

No that I'm fat, but since the images that society forces down our throats these days tell us that if you aren't built like stick with boobs (bee sting size), then you are not skinny, but I am a healthy kind of curvy. I've always said that I was just born in the wrong century, cause back then? I would have been the shit!

I love bright words, words up and singing early; Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing; Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees; I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly, Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees, Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.

If you let words go buzzing out of your mouth like bees, she always told me, they will come back and sting you.

If you were coming in the Fall, I'd brush the Summer by With half a smile and half a spurn, As Housewives do a Fly. If I could see you in a year, I'd wind the months in balls — And put them each in separate Drawers, For fear the numbers fuse — If only Centuries, delayed, I'd count them on my Hand, Subtracting, till my fingers dropped Into Van Diemen's land. If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I ’d toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity. But, now, uncertain of the length Of this, that is between, It goads me, like the Goblin Bee, That will not state — its sting.

I suppose that’s what everybody wants, isn’t it. To be like everybody else. But nobody is like everybody else. That’s the one thing we have in common.

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE IN WHICH I AM UNFAZED BY THE MEN WHO DO NOT LOVE ME when the businessman shoulder checks me in the airport, i do not apologize. instead, i write him an elegy on the back of a receipt and tuck it in his hand as i pass through the first class cabin. like a bee, he will die after stinging me. i am twenty-four and have never cried. once, a boy told me he doesn’t “believe in labels” so i embroidered the word chauvinist on the back of his favorite coat. a boy said he liked my hair the other way so i shaved my head instead of my pussy. while the boy isn’t calling back, i learn carpentry, build a desk, write a book at the desk. i taught myself to cum from counting ceiling tiles. the boy says he prefers blondes and i steam clean his clothes with bleach. the boy says i am not marriage material and i put gravel in his pepper grinder. the boy says period sex is disgusting and i slaughter a goat in his living room. the boy does not ask if he can choke me, so i pretend to die while he’s doing it. my mother says this is not the meaning of unfazed. when the boy says i curse too much to be pretty and i tattoo “cunt” on my inner lip, my mother calls this “being very fazed.” but left over from the other universe are hours and hours of waiting for him to kiss me and here, they are just hours. here, they are a bike ride across long island in june. here, they are a novel read in one sitting. here, they are arguments about god or a full night’s sleep. here, i hand an hour to the woman crying outside of the bar. i leave one on my best friend’s front porch, send my mother two in the mail. i do not slice his tires. i do not burn the photos. i do not write the letter. i do not beg. i do not ask for forgiveness. i do not hold my breath while he finishes. the man tells me he does not love me, and he does not love me. the man tells me who he is, and i listen. i have so much beautiful time.

My face was puffed out like I had been stung by a hive of pissed off bees; although that doesn’t make any sense. I mean, if a bee stings you, then, by nature, he’s pissed off. Right?

She reminded me that the world was really one big bee yard, and the same rules worked fine in both places: Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and long pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates, while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.

All pleasures have one quality alike: They drive their devotees with goads. And like a swarm of bees upon the wing, They first pour out their honey loads, Then turn and strike their victim’s heart And leave behind their deep set sting.

The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil.

be like a bee and put your life into the sting!

So," Cooper said conversationally. "You got hit with a shotgun blast. What's that like?"... She turned back to Cooper. "Well...um...it hurt. Like really big bee stings on crack.

Pretty Words" Poets make pets of pretty, docile words: I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish Which circle slowly with a silken swish, And tender ones, like downy-feathred birds: Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds, Come to my hand, and playful if I wish, Or purring softly at a silver dish, Blue Persian kittens fed on cream and curds. I love bright words, words up and singing early; Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing; Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees; I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly, Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees, Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.

He walked ahead of me down the hall and I was careful to keep a few steps behind him. I needed the distance. Close human contact was starting to scare me. In the past few weeks, all I'd known around people was pain. When people were face-to-face, tragedy struck. A look felt like a bee sting. It started to seem natural to be separated from people. I craved being alone. No one could hurt me inside my wall screens. They were slowly becoming a comfort, a cushion between me and the harsh world outside. I was stepping out of it less and less.

Knowing that it is the earth that we tread, we learn to tread carefully, lest it be rent open. Realizing that it is the heavens that hang above us, we come to fear the echoing thunderbolt. The world demands that we battle with others for the sake of our own reputation, and so we undergo the sufferings bred of illusion. While we live in this world with its daily business, forced to walk the tightrope of profit and loss, true love is an empty thing, and the wealth before our eyes mere dust. The reputation we grasp at, the glory that we seize, is surely like the honey that the cunning bee will seem sweetly to brew only to leave his sting within it as he flies. What we call pleasure in fact contains all suffering, since it arises from attachment. Only thanks to the existence of the poet and the painter are we able to imbibe the essence of this dualistic world, to taste the purity of its very bones and marrow.

Dane discarded his speargun with visible relief. As a paladin of the Church of God Kraken, he had few options. Like many groups devoid of real power and realpolitik, the church was actually constrained by its aesthetics. Its operatives could not have guns, simply, because guns were not squiddy enough. It was a common moan. Drunk new soldiers of the Cathedral of the Bees might whine: “It’s not that I don’t think sting-tipped blowpipes aren’t cool, it’s just…” “I’ve gotten rally good with the steam-cudgel,” a disaffected Pistonpunk might ask her elders “but wouldn’t it be useful to…?” Oh for a carbine, devout assassins pined.

Bees are like people, little girl. They attack when they feel threatened—when they’re afraid. It’s the same for us. It’s always the things we fear that sting us in the end. The things we hide from or push against. When we drop the fear—the resistance—things take their course in a more natural and painless way.

Henri made it clear by tone alone that if he wanted to buy that fight, Henri would certainly sell it. It bemused me, really. Henri was usually this easy-going gentleman, but man, if he did get pissed off? He was like a wounded badger. I don’t think he knows the whole idiom of ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.’ He was all bee.

Before he became a father, he imagined the relationship as being like an intensive version of owning a pet. The child, he thought, was essentially a passive, a vessel into which you poured your love. On TV that’s how it looked. Children were silent, dormant; you went into their bedrooms, gazed down at them fondly, drew the blankets over them as they slept. But in life, he discovered, parenthood was like – it was – living with a person. A new person, with strong opinions, strong tastes, arbitrary swings of emotion, all of them addressed at you. You were the passive one: the work of care was primarily to endure, to weather the endless, buffeting storms of unmediated will.

The sceptics, like bees, give their one sting and die.

Be the Music that Moves you Float like a Butterfly Sting like Bee Follow your DREAMS!

Like many beekeepers, I have discovered a dose of bee venom from a sting alleviates the symptoms of arthritis,

See, that's called perspective, Eli. A bee sting smarts like a bitch until someone clubs you with a cricket bat.

Ya smell like honey," he said. "I'm allergic to bees," she whispered. "I'll do my best not to sting ya, love.

in peony lips and bee sting nips in velvety nape like petal

Sometimes she wondered if she even liked him, but usually she was too busy figuring out if he liked her.

Then he said, Let me tell you a story from our tradition, a story about King Solomon. King Solomon gave a teaching once about the snake and the bee. The snake, King Solomon said, defends itself by killing. But the bee defends itself by dying. You know how a bee dies after a sting? Like that. It dies to defend. So, each creature has a method that is suitable to its strength.

...her skin was apparently covered with super-powered nerve endings that hadn't done a damn thing her whole life, but came alive like ice and fire and bee stings as soon as Park touched her.

I hate the thing is called enjoyment: Besides it is a dull employment, It cuts off all that's life and fire From that which may be termed desire; Just like the bee whose sting is gone Converts the owner to a drone.

The thoughts bounced around inside my skull like a disoriented swarm of bees. Noisy. Now and then they stung. Must be hornets, not bees. Bees died after one sting. And the same thoughts were stinging me again and again.

He cannot do anything deliberate now. The strain of his whole weight on his outstretched arms hurts too much. The pain fills him up, displaces thought, as much for him as it has for everyone else who has ever been stuck to one of these horrible contrivances, or for anyone else who dies in pain from any of the world’s grim arsenal of possibilities. And yet he goes on taking in. It is not what he does, it is what he is. He is all open door: to sorrow, suffering, guilt, despair, horror, everything that cannot be escaped, and he does not even try to escape it, he turns to meet it, and claims it all as his own. This is mine now, he is saying; and he embraces it with all that is left in him, each dark act, each dripping memory, as if it were something precious, as if it were itself the loved child tottering homeward on the road. But there is so much of it. So many injured children; so many locked rooms; so much lonely anger; so many bombs in public places; so much vicious zeal; so many bored teenagers at roadblocks; so many drunk girls at parties someone thought they could have a little fun with; so many jokes that go too far; so much ruining greed; so much sick ingenuity; so much burned skin. The world he claims, claims him. It burns and stings, it splinters and gouges, it locks him round and drags him down… All day long, the next day, the city is quiet. The air above the city lacks the usual thousand little trails of smoke from cookfires. Hymns rise from the temple. Families are indoors. The soldiers are back in barracks. The Chief Priest grows hoarse with singing. The governor plays chess with his secretary and dictates letters. The free bread the temple distributed to the poor has gone stale by midday, but tastes all right dipped in water or broth. Death has interrupted life only as much as it ever does. We die one at a time and disappear, but the life of the living continues. The earth turns. The sun makes its way towards the western horizon no slower or faster than it usually does. Early Sunday morning, one of the friends comes back with rags and a jug of water and a box of the grave spices that are supposed to cut down on the smell. She’s braced for the task. But when she comes to the grave she finds that the linen’s been thrown into the corner and the body is gone. Evidently anonymous burial isn’t quite anonymous enough, after all. She sits outside in the sun. The insects have woken up, here at the edge of the desert, and a bee is nosing about in a lily like silk thinly tucked over itself, but much more perishable. It won’t last long. She takes no notice of the feet that appear at the edge of her vision. That’s enough now, she thinks. That’s more than enough. Don’t be afraid, says Yeshua. Far more can be mended than you know. She is weeping. The executee helps her to stand up.

She does not collapse on the stage. She darts onto it, and says the most stunning thing, and then darts off. It is not the weight of her disclosures that stuns the audience, but the lightness of attention as it hovers between there and not there, between her enticing proximity and her blunt distance. Joan Didion is not a penitent in confession, or a lover ready for embrace. She is not even a burlesque dancer. God no. She is a boxer. She floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.

This must be what it feels like to be dying, he thinks; the world remains around you, like a lover who does not want to hurt you by leaving, but in spirit it’s already gone, taking with it the meaning of everything you shared. In truth it is already transforming into a future you will never be part of; and you realize only then that it has been transforming all of this time, throughout your whole life, and you with it; and that, in fact, is life, though you never knew, and now it is over.

Their dark silhouettes numbed the soft part of his brain, like a bee stinging and numbing a caterpillar, then laying eggs on the surface of its body. The bee larvae use the paralyzed caterpillar as a convenient source of food and devour it as soon as they’re born.

A song about my life If there were to be a song ‘bout my life It would sting like a bee It would cut like a knife If there were to be a song ‘bout my life It would dig deep Scratch old wounds and make them bleed If there were to be a song ‘bout my life It would be quite a burden to carry Painful and heavy If there were to be a song ‘bout my life It could be labelled ‘Titanic’ The unsinkable ship that sinks If there were to be a song ‘bout my life It would be an incomplete one Short of words and unsung I guess this is how it ends

life is a world you have to live by… it has its own rules you go by… it gives you joy and struggles… i see a mountain… my goal is not to reach the peak… but to reach the foot of the mountain… you may ask why the foot and not the peak… well come dear one sit down… and i'll tell you the meaning… A butterfly so delicate to touch… so graceful that you are in awe… but what you don't understand is they are like humans… they can't see how beautiful their wings are… but everything else can... we can't see our face but everyone else can… An owl so wise to see… so kind to hear… who it calls… the who is you… the who is one you meet… the who is a friend… A bee so humble… so hard working… and yet still has a whole lot of work to do… we can sting like a bee… for standing up what is right… even though it can be wrong… there is only one path… and you can never go back… all you have to do is to keep going… that path is the journey life awaits… but you have to follow by its rules… and here are the three simple rules… one... you must accept what life gives you… and also what it takes from you… two… never think too much… cause we all don't get the answers to everything… three… is to just deal with it… you create what life gives you, you don't run it… look at my feet… they are worn from all the rocks i had to walk on… but it has dirt that nourished life all the years… look at my hands… yes they are small but look closely… they are torn from climbing… life can try to put a blockage in your path… but all you can do is to climb that blockage… and say is that all… look in my eyes… they seen so many things… things i loss and gained… full of wonder… but if you look closer… you can see a fire burning so bright… i am determined to see beyond my journey… i am being created… creating my life in my own way… and we all have goals… but we all want to achieve a broad goal… that is the peak… but the main goal is to finish your path… the path life put you in… the path that leads to.... nothing for right now cause we haven't made it yet… but it said to be true… the foot of the mountain is a new beginning… we can't stand without a foot… so the question is… how are you going to stand at the peak to oversee the view when you didn't care so much about the foot?

People imagined poems were wispy things, she said, frilly things, like lace doilies. But in fact they were like claws, like the metal spikes mountaineers use to find purchase on the sheer face of a glacier. By writing a poem, the lady poets could break through the slippery, nothingy surface of the life they were enclosed in, to the passionate reality that beat beneath it. Instead of falling down the sheer face, they could haul themselves up, line by line, until at last they stood on top of the mountain. And then maybe, just maybe, they might for an instant see the world as it really is.

But in life, he discovered, parenthood was like – it was – living with a person. A new person, with strong opinions, strong tastes, arbitrary swings of emotion, all of them addressed at you. You were the passive one: the work of care was primarily to endure, to weather the endless, buffeting storms of unmediated will.

You go to class and discuss famous poems. The poems are full of swans, gorse, blackberries, leopards, elderflowers, mountains, orchards, moonlight, wolves, nightingales, cherry blossoms, bog oak, lily-pads, honeybees. Even the brand-new ones are jam-packed with nature. It’s like the poets are not living in the same world as you. You put up your hand and say isn’t it weird that poets just keep going around noticing nature and not ever noticing that nature is shrinking? To read these poems you would think the world was as full of nature as it ever was even though in the last forty years so many animals and habitats have been wiped out. How come they don’t notice that? How come they don’t notice everything that’s been annihilated? If they’re so into noticing things? I look around and all I see is the world being ruined. If poems were true they’d just be about walking through a giant graveyard or a garbage dump. The only place you find nature is in poems, it’s total bullshit. Even the sensitive people are fucking liars, you say. No, you don’t, you sit there in silence like always.

Instead of yelling at you when you did something wrong, like her mother did, Dad liked to bring you on a little journey first, up over the hills and mountains. It made it hard to fight back; you just had to follow the path he had laid out, his voice calm and even, your guilt crushing down on your shoulders, until turning a corner you would find yourself at the summit, your crime lying spread out in a panorama before you, and you and he would gaze down on it together.

Little known fact: One bee sting begets others. When a honeybee stings you it simultaneously releases a pheromone cocktail that lets the hive know it needs defending. The dominant ingredient in this pheromone, incidentally, is something called isoamyl acetate, which is a common ingredient in certain kinds of candy because it tastes like bananas. It’s also used in Hefeweizen beer. In other words, don’t eat banana-flavored Runts or drink a wheat Bavarian beer before rummaging around in beehives.

She reminded me that the world was really one big bee yard, and the same rules worked fine in both places: Don’t be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don’t be an idiot; wear long sleeves and long pants. Don’t swat. Don’t even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates, while whistling melts a bee’s temper. Act like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved. August had been stung so many times she had

There’s nothing like the first time ten thousand honeybees surround you. Not that a second time is any more charming, but it’s the sheer terror that grips one’s heart when such an encounter takes place for the first time. Words do not do justice to the experience as you can never convey to someone how nerve-racking it is to stand next to ten thousand honeybees looking to sting you. Yet, despite the sheer terror you experience, your heart threatening to jump out of your chest, you feel compelled to take a closer look;

And to face up to reality we first need to set aside all of these inventions and disguises we’ve been so busy accumulating. We need to take off our masks. And that’s hard, after a lifetime of hiding away, it’s existentially hard, take it from me. But once you do it, the world is transformed. Once you take off your mask, it’s like all the other masks become transparent, and you can see that beneath our individual quirks and weirdnesses, we’re the same. We are the same in being different, in feeling bad about being different. Or to put it another way, we are all different expressions of the same vulnerability and

I am sure you’re very pleased to have a pair of foxes,” Kestrel told Irex now, “but you’ll have to do better.” “I set down my tile,” Irex said coldly. “I cannot take it back.” “I’ll let you take it back. Just this once.” “You want me to take it back.” “Ah. So you agree that I know what tile you mean to play.” Benix shifted his weight on Lady Faris’s delicate chair. It creaked. “Flip the damn tile, Irex. And you, Kestrel: Quit toying with him.” “I’m merely offering friendly advice.” Benix snorted. Kestrel watched Irex watch her, his anger mounting as he couldn’t decide whether Kestrel’s words were a lie, the well-meant truth, or a truth she hoped he would judge a lie. He flipped the tile: a fox. “Too bad,” said Kestrel, and turned over one of hers, adding a third bee to her other two matching tiles. She swept the four gold coins of the ante to her side of the table. “See, Irex? I had only your best interests at heart.” Benix blew out a gusty sigh. He settled back in his protesting chair, shrugged, and seemed the perfect picture of amused resignation. He kept his head bowed while he mixed the Bite and Sting tiles, but Kestrel saw him shoot Irex a wary glance. Benix, too, had seen the rage that turned Irex’s face into stone. Irex shoved back from the table. He stalked over the flagstone terrace to the grass, which bloomed with the highest members of Valorian society. “That wasn’t necessary,” Benix told Kestrel. “It was,” she said. “He’s tiresome. I don’t mind taking his money, but I cannot take his company.” “You couldn’t spare a thought for me before chasing him away? Maybe I would like a chance to win his gold.” “Lord Irex can spare it,” Ronan added. “Well, I don’t like poor losers,” said Kestrel. “That’s why I play with you two.” Benix groaned. “She’s a fiend,” Ronan agreed cheerfully. “Then why do you play with her?” “I enjoy losing to Kestrel. I will give anything she will take.” “While I live in hope to one day win,” Benix said, and gave Kestrel’s hand a friendly pat. “Yes, yes,” Kestrel said. “You are both fine flatterers. Now ante up.

Cynnie’s disappeared while I’ve shut up shop. So has Ty, without even giving me a hug. He’s getting a dozen noogies for that the next time I see him. I lock up, checking and double-checking my security. On the way back from checking the manual lock on the fire escape door, I find the dress Cynnie was wearing draped across the foot of the staircase up into the loft like a fallen flower petal. “Baby?” Her wild giggle answers me. Grinning, I scoop up the dress and carry it up the stairs. I expect her to be n*ked in the bed, but she’s not. There’s no sign of her. “Baby, where are you?” Another wild giggle. With the open plan of my apartment, the stairwell, and the screen of trees in the loft, the acoustics can be weird. I was sure the first giggle came from upstairs. Now, it sounds like her giggle is coming from downstairs. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, bumble baby,” I call. Insane giggles. I spin around in place on the landing, trying to locate the source of those irresistible giggles. “When I find you, I’m going to b*te my bumble very hard on her b*ttom,” I growl. “I sting you!” That was definitely from my bedroom. I tear through the doorway and look around. No naughty bumble in my bed. I yank open the closet doors. No naughty bumble in my closets. There aren’t many hiding places in my bedroom. There’s no way she could fit between the trees. Then I spot the black rectangle half-hidden in the rumpled bedding. A phone. She’s put it on speaker and dimmed the screen. That sneaky little bee. I grab the phone and growl into it. “I’m going to find you.” “I fly away!” “You’ll never get away from me, little girl. And when I catch you, I’m going to eat you up.” I grip the phone, so turned on my hand shakes, muscles bunching. I pant into the phone. “I’m going to find you, wherever you are, and rail you into the ground.” She squees. There’s a very faint echo, and I realize where she is. Game on.

He plunged ahead. “I was wondering…” Arin had an idea. He’d had it for some time now. He didn’t like it. The words lay bitter on his tongue, but he had thought about it, and thought about it, and if he said nothing… Arin made himself study his tiles again. He tried to think which Sting tile would profit Kestrel least. He discarded a bee. The instant he set the tile down, he regretted it. He pulled a high Bite tile. This should have encouraged him, yet Arin had the sense of flying toward the inevitable moment when Kestrel won and he asked her what she wanted. “I thought…” “Arin?” She looked concerned. That decided him. Arin took a deep breath. His stomach changed to iron. His body was girding itself in a way he knew well. Arin was tightening the muscles needed before a plunge into deep water. A punch to the gut. The lift of the hardest, lowest, highest notes he could possibly sing. His stomach knew what he’d have to sustain. “Marry him,” Arin said, “but be mine in secret.

At this moment I am sensible that I have not the temper of a seeker after knowledge; like the vulgar, I am only a partisan. For the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers. And the difference between him and me at the present moment is only this—that while he seeks to convince his hearers that what he says is true, I am seeking to convince myself; to convince my hearers is a secondary matter with me. And do but see how much I have to gain by this. For if what I say is true, then I do well to believe it; and if there be nothing after death, still, I shall save my friends from grief during the short time that is left me, and my ignorance will do me no harm. This is the state of mind in which I approach the argument. And I would ask you to be thinking of the truth and not of Socrates. Agree with me if I seem to you to speak the truth; or, if not, withstand me might and main that I may not deceive you as well as myself in my desire, and like the bee leave my sting in you before I die. And now let us proceed.

The Man-Moth Man-Moth: Newspaper misprint for “mammoth.” Here, above, cracks in the buildings are filled with battered moonlight. The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat. It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on, and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon. He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties, feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold, of a temperature impossible to record in thermometers. But when the Man-Moth pays his rare, although occasional, visits to the surface, the moon looks rather different to him. He emerges from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings. He thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky, proving the sky quite useless for protection. He trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb. Up the façades, his shadow dragging like a photographer’s cloth behind him he climbs fearfully, thinking that this time he will manage to push his small head through that round clean opening and be forced through, as from a tube, in black scrolls on the light. (Man, standing below him, has no such illusions.) But what the Man-Moth fears most he must do, although he fails, of course, and falls back scared but quite unhurt. Then he returns to the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits, he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly. The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way and the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed, without a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort. He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards. Each night he must be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams. Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window, for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison, runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers. If you catch him, hold up a flashlight to his eye. It’s all dark pupil, an entire night itself, whose haired horizon tightens as he stares back, and closes up the eye. Then from the lids one tear, his only possession, like the bee’s sting, slips. Slyly he palms it, and if you’re not paying attention he’ll swallow it. However, if you watch, he’ll hand it over, cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.

Kestrel.” She discarded a tile and drew another. She didn’t look at him. He’d noticed--of course he had--how she avoided looking at him now. And no wonder. Arin’s face stung. The stitches itched. He was tempted to rip them out. “Look at me,” he said. She did, and Arin suddenly wished she hadn’t. He cleared his throat. He said, “I won’t try anymore to convince you not to marry him.” She slowly added the new tile to her hand. She stared at it, and said nothing. “I don’t understand your choice,” Arin said. “Or maybe I do. It doesn’t matter. You want it. That’s clear. You’ve always done exactly what you wanted.” “Have I.” Her voice was flat and dull. He plunged ahead. “I was wondering…” Arin had an idea. He’d had it for some time now. He didn’t like it. The words lay bitter on his tongue, but he had thought about it, and thought about it, and if he said nothing… Arin made himself study his tiles again. He tried to think which Sting tile would profit Kestrel least. He discarded a bee. The instant he set the tile down, he regretted it. He pulled a high Bite tile. This should have encouraged him, yet Arin had the sense of flying toward the inevitable moment when Kestrel won and he asked her what she wanted. “I thought…” “Arin?” She looked concerned. That decided him. Arin took a deep breath. His stomach changed to iron. His body was girding itself in a way he knew well. Arin was tightening the muscles needed before a plunge into deep water. A punch to the gut. The lift of the hardest, lowest, highest notes he could possibly sing. His stomach knew what he’d have to sustain. “Marry him,” Arin said, “but be mine in secret.” Her hand lifted from the tiles as if scorched. She sat back in her chair. She rubbed at her inner elbow. She drank the dregs of her wine and was silent. Finally, she said, “I can’t do that.” “Why?” Arin was hot with humiliation, hating himself for having asked. The cut burned in his cheek. “It’s not so different than what you would have chosen before. When you kissed me in your carriage on Firstwinter, you thought to keep me your secret. If you thought of anything. I would have been one of those special slaves, the ones called for at night when the rest of the house is sleeping. Well? Isn’t that how it was?” “No.” She spoke low. “It wasn’t.” “Then tell me.” Arin was damning himself with every word. “Tell me how it was.” Slowly, Kestrel said, “Things have changed.” Arin jerked his head to the side, chin up, stitched left cheek tilted to catch the light. “Because of this?” She replied as if the answer was obvious. “Yes.” He shoved back from the table. “I think I’ll have that drink.” Arin began to walk away, then glanced back over his shoulder. He made sure his words were an insult. “Don’t touch the tiles.

So Japan is allied with Germany and they’re like “Sweet the rest of the world already hates us let’s take their land!” So they start invading China and Malaysia and the Philippines and just whatever else but then they’re like “Hmm what if America tries to stop us? Ooh! Let’s surprise attack Hawaii!” So that’s exactly what they do. The attack is very successful but only in a strictly technical sense. To put it in perspective, let’s try a metaphor. Let’s say you’re having a barbecue but you don’t want to get stung by any bees so you find your local beehive and just go crazy on it with a baseball bat. Make sense? THEN YOU MUST BE JAPAN IN THE ’40s. WHO ELSE WOULD EVER DO THIS? So the U.S. swarms on Japan, obviously but that’s where our bee metaphor breaks down because while bees can sting you they cannot put you in concentration camps (or at least, I haven’t met any bees that can do that). Yeah, after that surprise attack on Pearl Harbor everybody on the West Coast is like “OMG WE’RE AT WAR WITH JAPAN AND THERE ARE JAPANESE DUDES LIVING ALLLL AROUND US.” I mean, they already banned Japanese immigration like a decade before but there are still Japanese dudes all over the coast and what’s more those Japanese dudes are living right next door to all the important aircraft factories and landing strips and shipyards and farmland and forests and bridges almost as if those types of things are EVERYWHERE and thus impossible not to live next door to. Whatever, it’s pretty suspicious. Now, at this point, nothing has been sabotaged and some people think that means they’re safe. But not military geniuses like Earl Warren who points out that the only reason there’s been no sabotage is that the Japanese are waiting for their moment and the fact that there has been no sabotage yet is ALL THE PROOF WE NEED to determine that sabotage is being planned. Frank Roosevelt hears this and he’s like “That’s some pretty shaky logic but I really don’t like Japanese people. Okay, go ahead.” So he passes an executive order that just says “Any enemy ex-patriots can be kicked out of any war zone I designate. P.S.: California, Oregon, and Washington are war zones have fun with that.” So they kick all the Japanese off the coast forcing them to sell everything they own but people are still not satisfied. They’re like “Those guys look funny! We can’t have funny-looking dudes roaming around this is wartime! We gotta lock ’em up.” And FDR is like “Okay, sure.” So they herd all the Japanese into big camps where they are concentrated in large numbers like a hundred and ten thousand people total and then the military is like “Okay, guys we will let you go if you fill out this loyalty questionnaire that says you love the United States and are totally down to be in our army” and some dudes are like “Sweet, free release!” but some dudes are like “Seriously? You just put me in jail for being Asian. This country is just one giant asshole and it’s squatting directly over my head.” And the military is like “Ooh, sorry to hear that buddy looks like you’re gonna stay here for the whole war. Meanwhile your friends get to go fight and die FOR FREEDOM.

Nevertheless, it would be prudent to remain concerned. For, like death, IT would come: Armageddon. There would be-without exaggeration-a series of catastrophes. As a consequence of the evil in man...-no mere virus, however virulent, was even a burnt match for our madness, our unconcern, our cruelty-...there would arise a race of champions, predators of humans: namely earthquakes, eruptions, tidal waves, tornados, typhoons, hurricanes, droughts-the magnificent seven. Floods, winds, fires, slides. The classical elements, only angry. Oceans would warm, the sky boil and burn, the ice cap melt, the seas rise. Rogue nations, like kids killing kids at their grammar school, would fire atomic-hydrogen-neutron bombs at one another. Smallpox would revive, or out of the African jungle would slide a virus no one understood. Though reptilian only in spirit, the disease would make us shed our skins like snakes and, naked to the nerves, we'd expire in a froth of red spit. Markets worldwide would crash as reckless cars on a speedway do, striking the wall and rebounding into one another, hurling pieces of themselves at the spectators in the stands. With money worthless-that last faith lost-the multitude would riot, race against race at first, God against God, the gots against the gimmes. Insects hardened by generations of chemicals would consume our food, weeds smother our fields, fire ants, killer bees sting us while we're fleeing into refuge water, where, thrashing we would drown, our pride a sodden wafer. Pestilence. War. Famine. A cataclysm of one kind or another-coming-making millions of migrants. Wearing out the roads. Foraging in the fields. Looting the villages. Raping boys and women. There'd be no tent cities, no Red Cross lunches, hay drops. Deserts would appear as suddenly as patches of crusty skin. Only the sun would feel their itch. Floods would sweep suddenly over all those newly arid lands as if invited by the beach. Forest fires would burn, like those in coal mines, for years, uttering smoke, making soot for speech, blackening every tree leaf ahead of their actual charring. Volcanoes would erupt in series, and mountains melt as though made of rock candy till the cities beneath them were caught inside the lava flow where they would appear to later eyes, if there were any eyes after, like peanuts in brittle. May earthquakes jelly the earth, Professor Skizzen hotly whispered. Let glaciers advance like motorboats, he bellowed, threatening a book with his fist. These convulsions would be a sign the parasites had killed their host, evils having eaten all they could; we'd hear a groan that was the going of the Holy Ghost; we'd see the last of life pissed away like beer from a carouse; we'd feel a shudder move deeply through this universe of dirt, rock, water, ice, and air, because after its long illness the earth would have finally died, its engine out of oil, its sky of light, winds unable to catch a breath, oceans only acid; we'd be witnessing a world that's come to pieces bleeding searing steam from its many wounds; we'd hear it rattling its atoms around like dice in a cup before spilling randomly out through a split in the stratosphere, night and silence its place-well-not of rest-of disappearance. My wish be willed, he thought. Then this will be done, he whispered so no God could hear him. That justice may be served, he said to the four winds that raged in the corners of his attic.

Brisbane’s nature tended towards the serious, but there was a graveness to his manner that told me he was speaking entirely from his heart. “I would like to work with Morgan. On a regular footing.” Sir Morgan Fielding. Secret advisor to the Prime Minister, my distant cousin, and Brisbane’s sometime employer in activities that could only be termed espionage . “You have given this a great deal of thought,” I temporised. “I have.” He began to walk, pulling me slowly along, his hand covering mine. “The threat in Germany grows. I don’t know how long we have, but something is stirring, something ugly and dangerous. Morgan is worried, too. He is in Berlin now.” ---- “Morgan is not terribly trusting at the best of times, even of us.” “But you want to work for him.” “With him,” he corrected . “Times are changing, and we both believe that the methods that have been used in the past will no longer serve. It’s time to create a new agency with new operatives, young minds that can be trained properly to sleuth out information and pass it back to London.” “You have thought this through,” I said, a trifle tartly. “I suppose it even has a name.” “Morgan likes the notion of the industriousness of bees. He was thinking of calling it the Apiary.” I thought a moment then shook my head. “No. Call it the Vespiary. After a nest of wasps. They have a more ferocious sting. If we are going to take on Germany, let them know we mean it.” He stopped, openmouthed. “You’re serious. You raise no objection.” “To what? You taking on dangerous work? You’ve done that since before I knew you. It was half the reason I fell in love with you, I expect. I could no more ask you to give up your work than I could hold back the tides. It is the stuff of which you are made.” He embraced me then, and when he drew back, my lips were tingling in the cold. “There’s something else,” he said. “Tell me.” “Morgan and I shall want your help.” It was my turn to stare, mouth agape. “You mean it?” “I do. You bungle into my cases with no method or order, and yet you have the instincts of a bloodhound. You understand people and what drives them. The Apiary will have need of people like you.” I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “The Vespiary,” I corrected. He grinned. “We shall see.” Just then he cocked his head. “And I would like to go up to the nursery and see the child.” I smiled in return.

The queen bee is the only bee in the hive that does not have a barbed stinger. This means she can repeatedly sting, like a wasp. —NED BLOODWORTH’S BEEKEEPER’S JOURNAL

Keeping bees is a lot like falling in love. Both provide a lot of sweetness tempered with an occasional sting. Furthering

Negativity is like being stung constantly by a thousand bees. At first it’s really annoying, but after a few more stings it becomes toxic.

That’s the problem with secrets. They buzz around inside the keeper like a hive of bees. Before long, somebody pokes it and the secrets swarm out, vexed and ready to sting.

On one occasion Aliverdi Khan told his elderly general, Mir Jafar Khan, that the Europeans were like a hive of bees, ‘of whose honey you might reap benefit, but if you disturbed their hive they would sting you to death’.

Ali roared and his words They just set me free Rumble in the jungle little boy Go and show your teeth Tingle on your tongue, burn 'em slow Sting 'em like a bee Be humble in your core, bar the door Let the doubters be Let the doubters be Redemption for an eternity In the flesh, in the bone Sturdier than a rhino’s horn In my breath, in my tone Levitate off of an angel’s song This is the modern day halcyon Straight from the immortal champion

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can't hit what his eyes can't see.

Clay’s quick, light boxing style – ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’ – was deemed inadequate to beat Liston. The night before the fight, Harvey Jones, the sparring partner of the young man already known as the ‘Louisville Lip’, presented a poem by Clay. Clay comes out to meet Liston and Liston starts to retreat, If Liston goes back an inch farther he'll end up in a ringside seat. Clay swings with a left, Clay swings with a right, Just look at young Cassius carry the fight. Liston keeps backing but there's not enough room, It's a matter of time until Clay lowers the boom. Then Clay lands with a right, what a beautiful swing, And the punch raised the bear clear out of the ring. Liston still rising and the ref wears a frown, But he can't start counting until Sonny comes down. Now Liston disappears from view, the crowd is getting frantic But our radar stations have picked him up somewhere over the Atlantic. Who on Earth thought, when they came to the fight, That they would witness the launching of a human satellite. Hence the crowd did not dream, when they laid down their money, That they would see a total eclipse of Sonny.

3) Before the 1974 fight with George Foreman: ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can't hit what his eyes can't see. Now you see me, now you don't. George thinks he will, but I know he won't.

Our black suns move erratically, like drunken bees, and each of them stings. Now more than ever we are full of blood and honey.

Gossip is just like a bee—it comes and it goes and it stops at every pretty flower, but it does no harm unless you stop it, try to catch it, and hold onto it. Then it stings you.

The bee flew past, buzzing loudly. They could feel the wind from its wings as it zoomed into the bee nest. Kate furrowed her brow. “I don’t know, they seem to ignore us like regular bees would.”  “Yeah,” Jack said, “they are bee-having normally.”  Kate giggled. “Bee-hiving normally.”  “But they DO have red eyes,” Mom said, “maybe they’ve been bee-witched!”  Dad groaned at Mom. “You too?” “What's wrong hub-bee?” Mom asked with a smirk.  Dad rolled his eyes. “No more please!”  “What?” Mom said, “can’t you tell that I’ve POLLEN in love with you?”  Dad covered his ears, and the kids laughed.  Mom continued. “Because you’re my honey.”  Dad cringed again. “Dad,” Jack said, “if you don’t like her jokes tell her to buzz off.”  Kate laughed. “Yeah, maybe you guys aren't in the... HONEY-moon phase anymore.”  “Don’t be a bay-bee,” Mom said to Dad, “bee positive!”  “AAAH!” Dad yelled. “Stop, stop!”  “What’s wrong?” Mom asked, “Do these jokes sting?”  Jack and Kate cracked up and even Mom started laughing her head off while Dad stood there with his hands over his ears saying, “Lalala! I can’t hear you!” When he noticed they had all stopped talking, he took his hands down. “Finally. You guys were bee-ing annoying.” They had a final laugh, then walked closer to the bee nest, to get a better look. Mom tapped Dad on the shoulder. “Do you like my hair today?”  Dad looked confused for a moment. “Uh... yes? It's very nice. You always look nice.”  Mom smiled at him. “Thank you dear, I just wanted to know if I needed to honeycomb it.

This is the wandring wood, this Errours den, This is no place for liuing men. But full of fire and greedy hardiment, The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide, But forth vnto the darksome hole he went, And looked in: his glistring armor made A litle glooming light, much like a shade, By which he saw the vgly monster plaine, Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide, But th’other halfe did womans shape retaine, Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine. And as she lay vpon the durtie ground, Her huge long taile her den all ouerspred, Yet was in knots and many boughtes vpwound, Pointed with mortall sting. Of her there bred A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed, Sucking vpon her poisonous dugs, each one Of sundry shapes, yet all ill fauored: Soone as that vncouth light vpon them shone, Into her mouth they crept, and suddain all were gone. Their dam vpstart, out of her den effraide, And rushed forth, hurling her hideous taile About her cursed head, whose folds displaid Were stretcht now forth at length without entraile. For light she hated as the deadly bale, Ay wont in desert darknesse to remaine, Where plaine none might her see, nor she see any plaine. Which when the valiant Elfe perceiu’ed, he lept As Lyon fierce vpon the flying pray, And with his trenchand blade her boldly kept From turning backe, and forced her to stay: Therewith enrag’d she loudly gan to bray, And turning fierce, her speckled taile aduaunst, Threatning her angry sting, him to dismay: Who nought aghast, his mightie hand enhaunst: The stroke down from her head vnto her shoulder glaunst. Much daunted with that dint, her sence was dazd, Yet kindling rage, her selfe she gathered round, And all attonce her beastly body raizd With doubled forces high aboue the ground: Tho wrapping vp her wrethed sterne arownd, Lept fierce vpon his shield, and her huge traine All suddenly about his body wound, That hand or foot to stirre he stroue in vaine: God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endlesse traine. His Lady sad to see his sore constraint, Cride out, Now now Sir knight, shew what ye bee, Add faith vnto force, and be not faint: Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee. That when he heard, in great perplexitie, His gall did grate for griefe and high disdaine, And knitting all his force got one hand free, Wherewith he grypt her gorge with so great paine, That soone to loose her wicked bands did her constraine. Therewith she spewd out of her filthy maw A floud of poyson horrible and blacke, Full of great lumpes of flesh and gobbets raw, Which stunck so vildly, that it forst him slacke His grasping hold, and from her turne him backe: Her vomit full of bookes and papers was, With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke, And creeping sought way in the weedy gras: Her filthy parbreake all the place defiled has. (...) That welnigh choked with the deadly stinke, His forces faile, ne can no longer fight. Whose corage when the feend perceiu’d to shrinke, She poured forth out of her hellish sinke Her fruitfull cursed spawne of serpents small, Deformed monsters, fowle, and blacke as inke, Which swarming all about his legs did crall, And him encombred sore, but could not hurt at all. (...) Thus ill bestedd, and fearefull more of shame, Then of the certaine perill he stood in, Halfe furious vnto his foe he came, Resolv’d in minde all suddenly to win, Or soone to lose, before he once would lin; And strooke at her with more then manly force, That from her body full of filthie sin He raft her hatefull head without remorse; A streame of cole black bloud forth gushed from her corse.

Yeah,” Jack said, “they are bee-having normally.”  Kate giggled. “Bee-hiving normally.”  “But they DO have red eyes,” Mom said, “maybe they’ve been bee-witched!”  Dad groaned at Mom. “You too?” “What's wrong hub-bee?” Mom asked with a smirk.  Dad rolled his eyes. “No more please!”  “What?” Mom said, “can’t you tell that I’ve POLLEN in love with you?”  Dad covered his ears, and the kids laughed.  Mom continued. “Because you’re my honey.”  Dad cringed again. “Dad,” Jack said, “if you don’t like her jokes tell her to buzz off.”  Kate laughed. “Yeah, maybe you guys aren't in the... HONEY-moon phase anymore.”  “Don’t be a bay-bee,” Mom said to Dad, “bee positive!”  “AAAH!” Dad yelled. “Stop, stop!”  “What’s wrong?” Mom asked, “Do these jokes sting?”  Jack and Kate cracked up and even Mom started laughing her head off while Dad stood there with his hands over his ears saying, “Lalala! I can’t hear you!

Melissa, you do everything like a bee: when you kiss, you drip sweet honey from your lips; when you ask for money, I feel the savage wound of your sting.

What's wrong hub-bee?” Mom asked with a smirk.  Dad rolled his eyes. “No more please!”  “What?” Mom said, “can’t you tell that I’ve POLLEN in love with you?”  Dad covered his ears, and the kids laughed.  Mom continued. “Because you’re my honey.”  Dad cringed again. “Dad,” Jack said, “if you don’t like her jokes tell her to buzz off.”  Kate laughed. “Yeah, maybe you guys aren't in the... HONEY-moon phase anymore.”  “Don’t be a bay-bee,” Mom said to Dad, “bee positive!”  “AAAH!” Dad yelled. “Stop, stop!”  “What’s wrong?” Mom asked, “Do these jokes sting?”  Jack and Kate cracked up and even Mom started laughing her head off while Dad stood there with his hands over his ears saying, “Lalala! I can’t hear you!

As early as 864, the Council of Worms decreed that bees, which had caused the death of a human being by stinging him, should be forthwith suffocated in the hive before they could make any more honey, otherwise the entire contents of the hive would become demoniacally tainted and thus rendered unfit for use as food; it was declared to be unclean, and this declaration of impurity implied a liability to diabolical possession on the part of those who, like Achan, “transgressed in the thing accursed.

Let me tell you a story from our tradition, a story about King Solomon. King Solomon gave a teaching once about the snake and the bee. The snake, King Solomon said, defends itself my killing. But the bee defends itself by dying. You know how a bee dies after a sting? Like that. It dies to defend. So, each creature has a method that is suitable to its strength. I don't agree with what Al-Qaeda did, they use a method I would not use, so I cannot say the word support. But I don't cast judgement on them. As I said before, Julius, and I think you should understand this: in my opinion, the Palestinian question is the central question of our time.

The wasp sting of capitalism was left to grow malignant without proper care. And wasps can keep on stinging once they begin. They don’t die like bees, so they don’t have to be as committed to the damage. We as humans forgot our specific place and spread into every place instead. As if we were removed from consequence. As if we were untouchable. We couldn’t even imagine the Earth retaliating. And then it did.

(Errour's Den) This is the wandring wood, this Errours den, A monster vile, whom God and man does hate: Therefore I read beware. Fly fly (quoth then The fearefull Dwarfe:) this is no place for liuing men. But full of fire and greedy hardiment, The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide, But forth vnto the darksome hole he went, And looked in: his glistring armor made “A litle glooming light, much like a shade, By which he saw the vgly monster plaine, Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide, But th’other halfe did womans shape retaine, Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine. And as she lay vpon the durtie ground, Her huge long taile her den all ouerspred, Yet was in knots and many boughtes vpwound, Pointed with mortall sting. Of her there bred A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed, Sucking vpon her poisonous dugs, eachone Of sundry shapes, yet all ill fauored: Soone as that vncouth light vpon them shone, Into her mouth they crept, and suddain all were gone. [The monster] Lept fierce vpon his shield, and her huge traine All suddenly about his body wound, That hand or foot to stirre he stroue in vaine: God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endlesse traine. His Lady sad to see his sore constraint, Cride out, Now now Sir knight, shew what ye bee, Add faith vnto your force, and be not faint: Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee. That when he heard, in great perplexitie, His gall did grate for griefe and high disdaine, And knitting all his force got one hand free, Wherewith he grypt her gorge with so great paine, That soone to loose her wicked bands did her constraine. Therewith she spewd out of her filthy maw A floud of poyson horrible and blacke, Full of great lumpes of flesh and gobbets raw, Which stunck so vildly, that it forst him slacke His grasping hold, and from her turne him backe: Her vomit full of bookes and papers was, With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke, And creeping sought way in the weedy gras: Her filthy parbreake all the place defiled has. ... Her fruitfull cursed spawne of serpents small, Deformed monsters, fowle, and blacke as inke, Which swarming all about his legs did crall, And him encombred sore, but could not hurt at all. ... Resolv’d in minde all suddenly to win, Or soone to lose, before he once would lin; And strooke at her with more then manly force, That from her body full of filthie sin He raft her hatefull head without remorse; A streame of cole black bloud forth gushed from her corse. Her scattred brood, soone as their Parent deare They saw so rudely falling to the ground, Groning full deadly, all with troublous feare, Gathred themselues about her body round, Weening their wonted entrance to haue found At her wide mouth: but being there withstood They flocked all about her bleeding wound, And sucked vp their dying mothers blood, Making her death their life, and eke her hurt their good.

Death is called the king of terrors—but it can do a child of God no hurt; this snake may hiss and wind about the body—but the sting is pulled out. The bee by stinging, loses its sting. While death did sting Christ upon the cross, it has quite lost its sting to a believer; it can hurt the soul no more than David did king Saul, when he cut off the lap of his garment. Death to a believer is but like the arresting of a man for debt—after the debt is paid! Death, as God's sergeants at arms, may arrest us, and carry us before God's justice; but Christ will show our discharge—the debt-book is crossed in his blood!

A bee will sting but still make honey. A rose will prick, but have a good scent. Life is like that, there will always be bad and good aspects. Yours is to focus on what is more important.

REMEMBERING THE WORDS OF MY LATE FATHER The time is 03.16 am the UK time and I have been thinking of you lately, nyana kaBhixa, Mngwevu, Tshangisa, Zulu, Skhomo, Mhlatyana, Rudulu. I listen and hear nothing but the echoes of your words of wisdom and encouragement in my daily life. Your priceless love for me and my late sister was the most solid foundation for our lives and the most nourishment of our souls which is still the pillar of the unbeatable strength that helps me stand tall against all odds. You always told us that life is a double-edged sword, it’s beautiful and enjoyable but there are times when it stings like a bee and the best thing to do is to take a cautious approach and remember that there will always be some victories along the way. Here are some of your words that continue to give me the ability to navigate throughout the challenges of life: . Know who you are,never compromise and sell yourself short . Stay authentic and never change because authenticity stiffens your backbone. . Always stand up for the truth no matter how high is the cost . Never eat like there is no tomorrow because you will not be able to survive in the times of famine. . Never sit too close to the fire because not every place is always has that kind of comfort. . Be aware of your surroundings and make it the part of your daily routine. . Always try to pull yourself together and remember that there are places where your tears will mean nothing to certain people. . Always remember that you were created to overcome every obstacle and to rise above every challenge. And never keep silent in the presence of your adversaries. . Always remember to share the little you have with those who are in need. . Never be afraid to say no when you have to say so. I give God all the glory for the choice He made before the foundation of the earth for choosing you to be my earthly father and I’m grateful for the years He allowed us to spend together on this planet. Thank you so much Tata for being a good and faithful steward of my life and thank you for the spirit of resilience that runs through the veins of every Xhosa heart. Lala ngoxolo Tshangisa. Love you so much.

This moment feels so dreadfully sore, Like a prickly thorn that I can't ignore. It's excruciating, oh how it stings, Like a bee's sharp sting that really zings. Pain, oh pain, it's part of the game, In life's grand adventure, it's never the same. From bumps and bruises to a broken heart, Pain finds a way to play its part. It sneaks up on us, oh yes it does, With a sting and a throb, just because. But Let me pamper myself with care so fine, In this very moment, oh how divine! With utmost tenderness, I shall embrace, A moment of self-love, at my own pace! I require some mercy, oh yes indeed, To grant myself kindness, in word and in deed. In this world so vast, with troubles untold, I seek solace and grace, to have and to hold.

answered, pulling on his overcoat. All the loneliness of the evening seemed to descend upon her at once then and she said with the suggestion of a whine in her voice, ‘Why don’t you take me with you some Saturday?’ ‘You?’ he said. ‘Take you? D’you think you’re fit to take anywhere? Look at yersen! An’ when I think of you as you used to be!’ She looked away. The abuse had little sting now. She could think of him too, as he used to be; but she did not do that too often now, for such memories had the power of evoking a misery which was stronger than the inertia that, over the years, had become her only defence. ‘What time will you be back?’ ‘Expect me when you see me,’ he said at the door. ‘Is’ll want a bite o’ supper, I expect.’ Expect him at whatever time his tipsy legs brought him home, she thought. If he lost he would drink to console himself. If he won he would drink to celebrate. Either way there was nothing in it for her but yet more ill temper, yet further abuse. She got up a few minutes after he had gone and went to the back door to look out. It was snowing again and the clean, gentle fall softened the stark and ugly outlines of the decaying outhouses on the patch of land behind the house and gently obliterated Scurridge’s footprints where they led away from the door, down the slope to the wood, through which ran a path to the main road, a mile distant. She shivered as the cold air touched her, and returned indoors, beginning, despite herself, to remember. Once the sheds had been sound and strong and housed poultry. The garden had flourished too, supplying them with sufficient vegetables for their own needs and some left to sell. Now it was overgrown with rampant grass and dock. And the house itself – they had bought it for a song because it was old and really too big for one woman to manage; but it too had been strong and sound and it had looked well under regular coats of paint and with the walls pointed and the windows properly hung. In the early days, seeing it all begin to slip from her grasp, she had tried to keep it going herself. But it was a thankless, hopeless struggle without support from Scurridge: a struggle which had beaten her in the end, driving her first into frustration and then finally apathy. Now everything was mouldering and dilapidated and its gradual decay was like a symbol of her own decline from the hopeful young wife and mother into the tired old woman she was now. Listlessly she washed up and put away the teapots. Then she took the coal-bucket from the hearth and went down into the dripping, dungeon-like darkness of the huge cellar. There she filled the bucket and lugged it back up the steps. Mending the fire, piling it high with the wet gleaming lumps of coal, she drew some comfort from the fact that this at least, with Scurridge’s miner’s allocation, was one thing of which they were never short. This job done, she switched on the battery-fed wireless set and stretched out her feet in their torn canvas shoes to the blaze. They were broadcasting a programme of old-time dance music: the Lancers, the Barn Dance, the Veleta. You are my honey-honey-suckle, I am the bee… Both she and

It kind of takes the pressure off, you say. I feel like if people knew they were mostly bacteria it would solve a lot of problems.

Next week next month the Christmas holidays The best hotels best beaches best resturants Talking talking Piling it up like more stuff in boxes to go in the spare room And when she listened she realized that this was what made them different Because in her house there was never a plan No thought for the future Life just came at you like a gang of lads getting out of a van

It was like a fever that had driven everybody mad and she thought they were all crackers till she caught it too and then she was just like the others tossing and turning at night over cruciate ligaments and points per game

And when she listened she realized that this was what made them different Because in her house there was never a plan No thought for the future Life just came at you like a gang of lads getting out of a van

We’re all different, but we all think everyone else is the same, he said. If they taught us that in school, I feel like the world would be a much happier place.

But on the other hand, there is no doubt that honeybees are a non-native species. It also seems to me common sense that flowers can produce only so much nectar, and that there can therefore be only so many bees in a particular habitat. Something has to give, and that thing is likely to be the local flower-visiting insects.

Lend money to an Enemy, and thou’lt gain him, to a Friend and thou’lt lose him. Learn of the skilful: He that teaches himself, hath a fool for his master. Let thy discontents be thy Secrets;—if the world knows them, ’twill despise thee and increase them. At 20 years of age the Will reigns; at 30 the Wit; at 40 the Judgment. He that hath a Trade, hath an Estate. Have you somewhat to do to-morrow; do it today. Men differ daily, about things which are subject to Sense, is it likely then they should agree about things invisible.   Speak with contempt of none, from slave to king, The meanest Bee hath, and will use, a sting.  

Justin Schmidt, an entomologist who studies venomous stings, created the Schmidt Sting Pain Index to quantify the pain inflicted by ants and other stinging creatures. His surprisingly poetic descriptions give some order to the hierarchy of ant stings as compared to those of bees and wasps: 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm. 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch. 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek. 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door. 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on tongue. 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin. 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail. 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut. 4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath. 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

My facial expression must have looked like a swarm of bees as I drank the hot brown liquid. Whatever it was, it was not the sting of coffee I swigged with swagger. Bitter is better than what I tasted.

There’s no such thing as a timid fighter,” Henry parroted. “That’s what Tag says. And he says Amelie fights every damn day.” “Hallelujah and praise the Lord for that,” Georgia said, sounding just like my great-grandma Kathleen. They were both small-town Levan girls who had spent a good deal of their lives as neighbors. So I guess it wasn’t surprising. “Amen,” I agreed. “Muhammad Amelie,” Georgia joked. “Floats like a butterfly . . .” “Stings like a bee,” Henry and I finished.

You call that a kiss?” “Yep.” Okay, so I’m in shock the girl put my hand on her creamy cheek. Damn, you’d think I was on drugs by the way my body reacted. She had me totally under her spell a minute ago. Then the pretty witch turned my game around so she was the one with the upper hand. She surprised me, that’s for sure. I laugh, deliberately calling attention to us because I know it’s exactly what she doesn’t want. “Shh,” Brittany says, hitting me on the shoulder to shut me up. When I laugh louder, she whacks my arm with the heavy chem book. My bad arm. I wince. “Ow!” The cut on my biceps feels like a million little bees are stinging it. ¡Cabrón me dolioǃ She bites her Bobbi Brown Sandwash Petal’d frosted bottom lip, which in my opinion looks fine on her. Though I wouldn’t mind seeing her in the Pink Blossom color, too. “Did I hurt you?” she asks. “Yes,” I say through gritted teeth as I concentrate on her lip gloss instead of the pain. “Good.” I lift my sleeve to examine my wound, which now (thanks to my chem partner) has blood trickling from one of the staples the doc at the free clinic put in it after the fight at the park with the Satin Hoods. Brittany’s got a pretty good whack for someone who probably weighs a buck ten soaking wet. She sucks in her breath and scoots away. “Oh my God! I didn’t mean to hurt you, Alex. Really, I didn’t. When you threatened to show me the scar, you lifted your left sleeve.” “I wasn’t really gonna show you,” I say. “I was fuckin’ with you. It’s okay,” I tell her. Geez, you’d think the girl never saw red blood before. Then again, her blood probably runs blue. “No, it’s not okay,” she insists while shaking her head. “Your stitches are bleeding.” “They’re staples,” I correct her, trying to lighten the mood. The girl is even whiter than she usually is. And she’s breathing heavy, almost panting. If she passes out, I swear I’m losing the bet with Lucky. If she can’t handle a little streak of my blood, how’s she gonna handle having sex with me? Unless we’re not naked, so she doesn’t have to see my various scars. Or if it’s dark, then she can pretend I’m someone white and rich. Fuck that, I want the lights on…I want to feel all of her against me and want her to know it’s me she’s with and not some other culero. “Alex, are you okay?” Brittany asks, looking totally concerned. Should I tell her I was spacing out while thinking about us having sex?