Humming of Bees

The laburnum at the front of my house surely enjoyed its most profuse flowering in 2026. Although its golden bows are faded or gone, and the breeze denudes the stems and covers the ground with yellow confetti, those few weeks have been remarkable for its sound. Trees make no noise of course, but the dozens (or hundreds) of bees which fed upon its nectar from dawn till dusk emitted a loud buzz and the combined sounds of their little wings filled the air. I like bees at the best of times, but that constant, low hum gave me much pleasure as our most useful insects turned flower juice into honey juice.

I have been reading Iain Murray’s 2011 biography of Archibald Brown, the Victorian Baptist minister in London who later followed Spurgeon in the pastorate of the Metropolitan Tabernacle. His church in Stepney Green employed 1000 volunteer visitors and Sunday School workers, and yet he asks:

"We now hear of 'Christian workers' in connectioin with the church. We might almost as well talk of 'working working-men'. God did not bring the Israelites from Egypt from the brick kilns that they might sit down in idleness...Redemption then service. God never saved a man to let him have an easy life."

May we be as busy as the bees, and our actions just as sweet.

     D