The Keeper of the Bees

While relaxing in my garden, one fine morning, a couple of bees buzzed by and then were back instantly to refresh my otherwise active memory about having read 'The Keeper of the Bees' by Gene Stratton-Porter in my school way back in 1953.

The narration, a classical environmental read is about an immaculately laid out Bee Garden- Apiary in California, its elderly keeper, the Bee Master and his very young girl friend and honorary partner, an impish tomboy, who while wisecracking incessantly and humorously claims to have lived happily, every minute of her teenage years.

The book also centers on a Scottish immigrant, an ailing war veteran who while hitchhiking enters the Bee Garden, well in time to see its master afflicted by a seizure and then to phone the doctor and provide first aid as instructed. While awaiting the doctor's arrival, the Bee Master moved by teh sicerity f the unexpected visitor, implores him to be his guest and stay put till his return from the hospital. So the story moves poignantly

The book published in 1925 is still in print and can be read online. Here is to Happy Reading!