“The artist, then, is sipping from the flowers of life and is offering us the sweetest thing it is possible to imagine:  the honey of creation.” _{- Juan Antonio Ramirez, The Beehive Metaphor-From Gaudi to Le Corbusier  Translated by Alexander R. Tulloch, Reaktion Books,  Chapter 3:  Symbolist Beehive, Artistic Beehive  pp. 75}

“Veiled in this fragile filigree of wax is the essence of sunshine, golden and limpid, tasting of grassy meadows, mountain wildflowers, lavishly blooming orange trees, or scrubby desert weeds.  Honey, even more than wine, is a reflection of place.  If the process of grape to glass is alchemy, then the trail from blossom to bottle is one of reflection.  The nectar collected by the bee is the spirit and sap of the plant, its sweetest juice.  Honey is the flower transmuted, its scent and beauty transformed into aroma and taste.” _{-Quoted from Honey from flower to table by Stephanie Rosenbaum, 2002, Chronicle Books, LLC, Introduction, page 10.}

"There is no doubt that a certain similarity can be seen between bees, which sculpt the honeycombs out of a soft substance (wax), and sculptors, who do as much with the same material (or equivalents…)  Is it therefore so surprising that, in this context, the artist should be associated with the self-sacrificial bee?”_{-Juan Antonio Ramirez, The Beehive Metaphor- From Gaudi to Le Corbusier  Translated by Alexander R. Tulloch, Reaktion Books,  Chapter 3:  Symbolist Beehive, Artistic Beehive  pp. 75-76}

"In the United States, honeybees accomplish an estimated 80 percent of crop insect pollination.  Approximately 15 percent of our daily diet comes directly from insect pollinated plants; another 20 percent from animals such as cows that forage off of insect-pollinated plants such as alfalfa and clover.  It takes nearly a million honey bee colonies just to pollinate California’s almond crop, which covers roughly 400,000 acres.  In fact, with the current decimation of many wild bee colonies by the deadly varroa mite, as well as by pesticides and loss of habitat, farmers have become more dependent than ever on commercial beekeepers to ensure the pollination of their fruit trees and other crops.  Farmers and beekeepers now have symbiotic relationships much like those between the flowers and the bees themselves."_{-Quoted from Honey from flower to table by Stephanie Rosenbaum, 2002, Chronicle Books, LLC, Chapter 2, page 31.}

“The arts of building from the bee receive.” _{- Pope, Essay on Man.  Epis. iii. 1. 175}.

“…La Ruche De Montparnasse (the Paris Beehive), …a central building vaguely inspired by a large rustic beehive...These buildings housed artists’ studios:  80 in the three storeys of the central rotunda, plus an increasing number in the living quarters which were built around it…All artists received a warm welcome, irrespective of their aesthetic orientation, social background or country of origin.  Empty studios could be occupied by the first person who asked for one:  if one remained empty overnight Boucher would greet the next occupier the following morning without asking where he had come from or how.  Soutine seems to have stayed there for seven years without any identity documents.  A benevolent paternalism reigned in La Ruche in order to improve the education of its denizens and do everything possible to help them work._{- Juan Antonio Ramirez, The Beehive Metaphor-From Gaudi to Le Corbusier  Translated by Alexander R. Tulloch   Reaktion Books,  Chapter 3:  Symbolist Beehive, Artistic Beehive  pp. 70-72}

Thank you to the following for granting me permission to quote:

Chronicle Books

       www.chroniclebooks.com

Reaktion Books

      www.reaktionbooks.com

Antonio Ramirez

      http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/titles/essaysac_beehive.html