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The Bee's Knees

Back by popular demand

We are thrilled to have a very active bee hive again this season thanks to our fearless bee leader Edie McDonald and a number of bee keepers at our garden. Bee Day is being planned for August 8th at 10a.m.. Last year's event was a huge success.

This is an opportunity to view the inside of a bee hive and possibly pet a bee. Our own Edna White honey will "bee" on sale.

The bee's knees

Meaning

Excellent - the highest quality.

Origin

Hard to tell if we need an etymologist or an entomologist for this one.

Bees carry pollen back to the hive in sacks on their legs. It is tempting to explain this phrase as alluding to the concentrated goodness to be found around the bee's knee. There's no evidence for this explanation though. It is sometimes said to be a corruption of 'business', but there's no evidence to support that either.

Nor is there any connection with another phrase, 'a bee's knee'. In the 18th century this was used as a synonym for smallness, but has since disappeared from the language:

Mrs. Townley Ward - Letters, June 1797 in N. & Q. "It cannot be as big as a bee's knee."

There's no definitive origin for 'the bee's knees', but it appears to have been coined in 1920s America. The first printed reference to it I can find is in the Ohio newspaper The Newark Advocate, April 1922, under the heading 'What Does It Mean?':