A HIVE OF BEES (180 pp.)John CromptonDoubleday ($3.75).
The busy little bee that improves each shining hour is a slouch compared to a great many natural-history writers. Such a one is Britain's John Crompton, who has proved once again that a true passioneven a love of man for insectis the substance of literature. Displaying a talent that recalls Rachel (The Sea Around Us) Carson, Apiarist Crompton has in the past written engagingly on the ant, the hunting wasp and the spider. But evidently the bee is his true poetic faithand the bee in his bonnet is as good as a sonnet.
Unlike Maurice...