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read this poem, visit 
here. 		 SOURWOOD 

by R. T. Smith 
 
When the keeper has died, 
whose hands have touched 
so much honey, 

the village will convene 
to elect a successor 
and to remember 

the sweetness of his voice, 
his dependable hymns, 
the spell of smoke 

and the hush just after. 
While the elders 
resist the old rhythms 

of grief, one will speak 
of the ancient belief -- 
that the bee-father's demise, 

kept secret, could cause 
the death of the hives 
in the coming winter. 

Then the question will rise 
in a nervous murmur: 
Who will tell the bees?