Bees have fascinated poets at least as far back as Virgil, both as remarkable creatures worthy of study and as metaphors for some aspect of human behavior.

"We are bees then; our honey is language," writes Robert Bly in "Words Rising," one of many 20th- and 21st-century poems included in a new anthology, "If Bees Are Few: A Hive of Bee Poems." It makes for good summer reading, especially if you have a meadow handy.

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