Bee Keepers

All you need to keep bees close
is a screen and a smokeshow
and cheap glucose.
One bee never knows
to think the rotting wooden box
is not what it chose.
At dawn it goes.
From the weeds among the rocks
and from the rose
it weaves its nectar socks
and the comb grows.

When the work has built the stocks
the stocks are pulled
and scraped and spun.
There is a buzzing muffled hum.
Maybe that's bees having fun.

All you need to keep bees close
is a screen and a smokeshow
and cheap glucose.
No bee ever knows
who owns the trough,
how who is culled
is called from who can't be lulled.
But there are those
who sense the winter sugar taste is off.