“The Bee Carol” - Third Programme

[Apiarisnt]

Listeners to Radio 3 will be aware that this year's Carol Competition is to set to music Carol Ann Duffy's poem The Bee Carol. the settings can be heard here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4bq78QT7j5pz5cQwdmN84Lz/radio-3-carol-competition-2018

and the words are:

Silently on Christmas Eve,
the turn of midnight’s key;
all the garden locked in ice —
a silver frieze —
except the winter cluster of the bees.

Flightless now and shivering,
around their Queen they cling;
every bee a gift of heat;
she will not freeze
within the winter cluster of the bees.​

Bring me for my Christmas gift
a single golden jar;
let me taste the sweetness there,
but honey leave
to feed the winter cluster of the bees.

Come with me on Christmas Eve
to see the silent hive —
trembling stars cloistered above —
and then believe,
bless the winter cluster of the bees​

.

One might observe that she does not mention anything about treating with oxalic acid over the Christmas period - a notable omission...

 

[Murox]

but there is nothing idealised or romantic in mentioning the gassing of bees with oxalic acid.

 

[madasafish]

but there is nothing idealised or romantic in mentioning the gassing of bees with oxalic acid.

I don't know: I love the smell of Oxalic Acid in the morning...

(apologies to Robert Duvall and Francis Ford Coppola)