Beekeeper John Rigdon expressed his love for honey bees and NCSBA by composing “My Gentle Honey Bees“. NCSBA has adopted this song as its official theme song and presented John with a plaque at the 1995 Spring Convention in Southern Pines in recognition of this accomplishment. Thank you John! Your tribute to honey bees is forever recorded here and will refresh our spirits each time we sing.
(Suggested tune: Just A Closer Walk With Thee )
MY GENTLE HONEY BEES
© John Rigdon,
North Carolina Music “Meister”
1. I’ve a hive of honey bees
Nestled down among the trees
They live in peace and at ease
My thrifty, gentle honey bees.
(Chorus)
3. Then in May and weather warm
I look up and see a swarm
And high up in a tree I see
A swarm of gentle honey bees.
(Chorus)
5. For our work we now get our pay
We just take away the honey
Nature’s purest and sweetest sweet
The loveliest food we can eat.
(Chorus)
7. Fall has come, summer has gone
The sweet nectar flows no more
Only the workers and queen
Will live to see the next spring.
(Chorus)
9. The cold nights are getting shorter
Days are now getting longer
Spring is just around the corner
Bees and their keepers start all over.
(Chorus)
Blossoms will soon be in the trees
And when the nectar starts to flow
My bees will get it, don’t you know.
(Chorus)
4. In June still more flowers bloom
There is never time for gloom
They will gather nectar plenty soon
I super up to make more room.
(Chorus)
6. Long before the first snow
The drones know they soon must go
After a life lived in vain
Their last days are spent in pain.
(Chorus)
8. When in winter’s cold weather
In the hive they cluster together
And eat honey, Oh, so sweet
From it they get their only heat.
(Chorus)
10. Just a hive of honey bees
Nestled down among the trees
I don’t want killers, please
Just some gentle honey bees.
(Chorus)
Chorus:
How I love my Honey Bees
Oh! How I love my honey bees
Though it pains me when they sting
I still love my honey bees!