4.3 The Bees
Complete textbook exercise solutions — Maharashtra State Board (Balbharati), Grade Eight English.
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Warming Up!
| Profession | Field of work |
|---|---|
| (1) Chief Minister | (d) Administration |
| (2) Magistrate | (g) Law |
| (3) Soldier | (f) Defence |
| (4) Trader | (a) Business |
| (5) Builder | (c) Construction |
| (6) Driver | (b) Transport |
| (7) Teacher | (e) Education |
(tall / quiet / humble / merry / busy / slippery / fast / sly / slow / big)
- (1) as merry as a lark
- (2) as slow as a snail
- (3) as tall as a giraffe
- (4) as busy as a bee
- (5) as big as an elephant
- (6) as quiet as a mouse
- (7) as slippery as an eel
- (8) as sly as a fox
- (9) as humble as a worm
- (10) as fast as a deer
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- (a) King / Emperor bee: He sits in his royal tent, busied in his majesty, and supervises the different building and collecting activities of the bees in the kingdom.
- (b) Magistrate bees: They do the work of correcting at home, acting like judges or administrators to maintain law and order within the hive.
- (c) Merchant bees: They venture out to trade abroad, meaning they go out of the hive to collect nectar from different places.
- (d) Soldier bees: Armed with their stings, they loot the nectar from summer buds and march merrily to bring the pillage back home.
- (e) Mason bees: They sing while building roofs of gold (which refers to constructing the honeycombs).
- (f) Civilian bees: They do the domestic work of kneading up the honey to mix it uniformly.
- (g) Porter bees: Acting like poor mechanics, they carry heavy burdens of nectar and crowd around the narrow gate of the hive.
- (h) Judge bee: With a sad eye and a surly hum, he delivers death sentences to the lazy, yawning drones and hands them over to the pale executors.
- (a) Human beings can learn from honey bees — (iii) how to lead an organised nation.
- (b) The soldier-bees carry home — (ii) nectar looted from flowers.
- (c) The emperor-bee supervises the building of — (i) the bee hive. (Note: The poem mentions "roofs of gold", which refers to the bee hive).
- (d) The (ii) civilian citizen bees make honey from nectar.
- (e) The drone is given a death sentence because he — (iii) does not do any work.
| (i) merry march | (iv) mechanic porters |
| (ii) royal tent | (v) heavy burdens |
| (iii) singing masons | (vi) pale executors |
(B) (i) Find any two Alliterative lines.
- "Which pillage they with merry march bring home" (Repetition of the 'm' sound).
- "The civil citizens kneading up the honey" (Repetition of the 'c' /s/ sound).
(B) (ii) Pick out the line that contains an Onomatopoetic word.
"The sad eyed Justice, with his surly hum," (The word 'hum' indicates sound).
(C) Pick out three lines that create an image in your mind of bees busy at work.
- "The singing masons building roofs of gold,"
- "The civil citizens kneading up the honey,"
- "The poor mechanic porters crowding in / Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,"
(A) Phonetic transcriptions.
(Here are the standard IPA transcriptions for the given words):
- (1) work : / wɜːk /
- (2) bees : / biːz /
- (3) boot : / buːt /
- (4) home : / həʊm /
- (5) mason : / ˈmeɪ.sən /
- (6) citizen : / ˈsɪt.ɪ.zən /
- (7) porters : / ˈpɔː.təz /
(B) Say the following words aloud and put the stress mark on the stressed syllables.
- crea-tures → 'crea-tures
- me-cha-nic → me-'cha-nic
- de-li-ve-ring → de-'li-ve-ring
- bur-den → 'bur-den
- e-xe-cu-tor → e-'xe-cu-tor
- ma-gis-trate → 'ma-gis-trate
This is a practical project. You can gather pictures of a Bee, Praying mantis, Butterfly, Beetle, Wasp, and Dragon-fly, and write a few lines about how they help the environment (like pollination or natural pest control) to compile your file on 'Insects — our friends'.