A lesson from the Bees
How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour: And gather honey all the day, From every opening flower.”
So said an English poet and we may learn a good deal from even the tiniest of God’s creatures.
Let us notice some of the ways and habits of the honey-bee. Most boys and girls like honey; and everybody admires the beautiful honeycomb, with its neatly made cells, filled with rich layers of glistening sweetness. A wise and industrious little worker is the bee. It lays up in the present, what it is to feed upon, and enjoy, in the future. It gathers its stores from all kinds of flowers and blossoms in the bright sunshine of summer, and in the dreary winter there is plenty of work inside the beehive, to keep them going until the summer comes round again.
The bee goes out with the sunrise, and flits from flower to flower, singing a sweet solo all the time. They are musicians, as well as toilers. Their labor is lightened with song. Their busiest days are their merriest. During the early evening hours there is a perfect concert of music in the busy hive: treble, and tenor, and bass, all helping to keep tip the harmony.
The Word of God is said to be sweeter than honey, and the honeycomb, to the one who loves it: and if a little girl or boy desires to be right with God, and to have a home with Jesus in heaven, now is the time to prepare for it. This is your summer time: “The Gospel day.”
The honey-bee does not live alone. It has thousands of companions, and they have one borne which they flock to when evening draws nigh.
If you are a believer in Jesus, you too, have many companions. All God’s children are dear to Jesus, and they all love, and are kind to, each other.
In this they are like the little bees, and just as a hive of bees cluster together, so the children of God should be united and happy in each other’s company. This is what God delights to see (Ps. 132).
Bees are not at all selfish; each one labors for all the colony, and not for itself alone; their labor is for love as well as duty.
Don’t you think that all Christian girls and boys should be like the bees in this respect, and always be seeking to make each other happy?
Another fact about the little honey-gatherers is this: Every flower, or blossom, that the bee taxes, is made the better for its visit. They take what enriches them, but it leaves the flower richer than before. Their visits are like angels’ visits. They bless where they land. They satisfy their own wants, and gather sweet food for man, yet leave the blossom richer than when they found it. It will not be easy to tell which is most benefited, the bee or the flower.
So should it be with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ. For all we receive, we should give. Every home we visit, every place we pass through, should be the better for our having been in it. Remember what Jesus said to His disciples, when He sent them forth:
Bees are day-laborers. They toil on, from early morn, through all the sunny day, but never late at night. Let us, dear children, be like the diligent and happy honey-bee, and do all our little service for Jesus cheerfully, while it is daytime, for God’s Word tells us that “the night cometh when no man can work” (John 9:44I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. (John 9:4)).
And just as the bee sings its merry song, while it gathers the sweet nectar from the flowers, and carries it to the hive, so it is your privilege, while you gather up that which is “sweeter than honey” from the Word of God, and pass it on to others, to be “singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:1919Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; (Ephesians 5:19)).
ML 01/21/1940