This work is the culmination of one year of planning until Asger and his team invited me to see his bees. Asger Søgaard is a beekeeping consultant, former director of the Danish Beekeepers Association and past president of Apimondia, the international federation of national beekeepers associations.

Neolithic rock art depicts humans collecting honey. Honey existed before Cronos was overthrown and before vine was cultivated. As an infant Zeus was fed by bees. That is the story. Kings of ancient Egypt were buried with honey to sweeten the afterlife. Honey and the bee are among our oldest motifs.

The stem for honey "µελι-" (‘méli’) appears throughout Greek poetry in words used to describe the poetic craft such as sweet-voiced (µελιγάρυς) and honey-tongued "µελίγλωσσος" for those blessed with eloquence. When honey is produced, signals are transmitted between flowering plants. It is poetry itself.

Today bees and other pollinators face a series of challenges in the modern landscape of agriculture, causing colonies to collapse and an overall decline in numbers due to pollen scarcity, disease and pesticides. Mitigating these problems starts with generating awareness among lawmakers and the public.