DAD’S BEES

Honey sweetens up the bees just like it sweetens up us,

But you have to be careful, sometimes they make a big fuss.

They get the pollen from blossoms and the nectar from them, too,

The bees work hard all day through.

The queen bee doesn’t work but she lays eggs;

When the bees get nectar the pollen sticks to their legs.

Guard bees stand in front of the entrance guarding the hive,

You don’t know for sure that the bees will survive.

poem by

William Kelley Castellan, age 6

One Saturday in the spring of 1989 I had just retrieved the mail. I sat down across from my son Liam at our kitchen table and proceeded to open the letters. Out of the blue he announced he was going to write a poem. I was quite surprised. Although we had often read poems to him ever since he was born including classics like “Goodnight Moon,” we hadn’t done so recently and he had never indicated interest in writing a poem before.

I nearly blurted out “Where in the world did that idea come from, Liam?” Fortunately I caught myself just in time with the thought: “Don’t question or analyze. Encourage!” I said with some interest, “That sounds like a good idea. Usually you write a poem about a topic you know something about. What is your poem going to be about?”

Then Liam looked up toward the ceiling and lightly tapped the side of his head with his right index finger a few times, pondering. He looked back at me after a short pause and said, “I’m going to write a poem about your bees.” I had introduced him to beekeeping maybe two years before. He had his own protective bee outfit and had even helped me capture a couple of swarms.

He proceeded to get a lined sheet of notebook paper and pencil and wrote, “Dad’s Bees”. I said, “That’s a good title. What’s your poem’s first line going to be?” He reflected a few seconds and then wrote his first line. I complimented him on a good start and asked him what his next line was going to be. I thought the first line can be anything, it’s the second and following lines that might frustrate him, requiring some gentle help with a word rhyme. But after a very short pause, he proceeded to write down a nicely rhyming line to make a couplet!

He continued with his composition, one line following another without any long pauses or coaching from me. He kept amazing me with very nice matching couplets. All I kept saying with each line written, “That’s a pretty good line” and waited anxiously to find when he might stumble in a rhyme or encounter writer’s block. It never happened! He finished his poem that with four rhyming couplets provided a fair summary of the life story of a hive of bees.

Liam noticed a poetry contest announced for elementary school children at our community library and submitted his poem. It won for first graders. Later I saw in my Gleanings in Bee Culture journal a poetry contest announced by the American Mead Association. They were soliciting poems about bees, honey or mead from anyone. I showed it to Liam and he asked if he could enter his poem. When I said the entry fee was $3, he immediately ran to his little money box. $3 was nearly the sum total of its contents. He seemed sure he was going to win the $100 first prize. I discussed the reality of this but wasn’t successful in adjusting his expectations. He still wanted to spend his $3 and enter his poem. I helped him mail a copy of his original handwritten poem with the $3, adding a cover letter vouching that he was the sole author who had no help from anyone else.

We had both forgotten the contest after several of months when a large thick envelope for Liam arrived from the Mead Society. He opened it. It contained their recent Fall 1990 issue announcing the poetry contest results on pages 8-9 along with a letter congratulating him for being one of three honorable mentions after the winner along with a $10 check. The winner was Noreen Blaiklock who kept bees with her husband on a small Maine farm. Karl Showler, president of the British Beekeepers Association and former assistant to legendary Dr. Eva Crane at the International Bee Research Association, and Robert Cosgrove, California Director for the Western Apiculture Society, were the other two honorable mentions.

The last honorable mention paragraph:

William Castellan (“Dad’s Bees”) is 7 ½ years old and the son of a Pennsylvania beekeeper. “With no coaxing or coaching and only minor spelling and punctuation changes by Dad – see enclosed copy” was the note at the bottom of this entry. And indeed, the photocopy submitted shows the poem was written on lined paper in a child’s handwriting.