" For decades, beekeepers have been removing virtually all stored honey from hives and replacing it with a sterile solution of refined sugar and factory-produced "bee food".
Could it be that we are taking, for our own benefit, the very substance that enabled the bees to resist infection and the assaults of mites?
Michael Tod
Abergavenny, Monmouthshire "
" Richard Gray's report on the importance of ivy for bees (April 26) brought to mind Gerard Manley Hopkins's sonnet from 1885, Patience, hard thing.*
The sonnet, with its image of the worker bee dropping honey into the honeycomb after a day spent in the warmth of the shining ivy, is given scientific authority by Professor Francis Ratnieks's findings.
Michael Owen
Colwyn Bay, Conwy"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/10028684/Could-the-secret-of-bee-survival-lie-in-the-honey.html
*
"Patience, Hard Thing! The Hard Thing But To Pray
Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart's ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.
We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more distils
Delicious kindness?—He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.
Gerard Manley Hopkins"
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/patience-hard-thing-the-hard-thing-but-to-pray/