Bees suggest all that is beautiful, fragrant and delicious in the floral universe. Hence bee-keeping has been termed the “poetry of agriculture.” A flower without a bee to sip nectar and rolic in its pollen, hints too broadly the quasi bliss of “single blessedness.” Types of toil, symbols of frugality, models of government -- with Flora propitious, how extravagantly provident, and how cheerfully they fill our dish with a “Benjamin's mess” of their delicate fare.


Notes

* source : from the introduction in "Metcalf's Key to Bee-keeping - Most Profitable Method of Managing Bees," by Martin Metcalf. Originally published: April 1862

* "single blessedness" : the state of being unmarried
There are single people who deliberately chose to be singles as they have discerned that is their vocation: single blessedness. They believed that "a life of single blessedness" was preferable to "marrying and giving in marriage."

* "Benjamin's mess" : the largest share or portion 
In the Bible, Benjamin was the youngest son of the Jewish patriarch Jacob. When Jacob's sons encountered their long-lost brother Joseph in Egypt, where he had become a high official, they failed to recognize him, but Joseph generously entertained them. … And he took and sent messes [servings of food] unto them from before him. … but Benjamin's mess was five times so much as any of their's (Genesis 43 : 34).

PLB

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