Busy Bee (Working in the Sunshine)

DESCRIPTION: "Working, working in the sunshine. Gathering honey day by day Oh, the little busy bee Is the type for you and me, For in summer he provides a winter store." Morning and evening, "still he sings his merry tune" as the bee works and plans
AUTHOR: Words: William McGavin (The Song Wave)
EARLIEST DATE: 1882 (The Song Wave)
KEYWORDS: bug food music work | bee
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Swan-BalladsAndFolkSongsFromMorningSunIowa 21, p. 53, "Busy Bee" (1 short text)
ADDITIONAL: H. S. Perkins, H, J. Danforth, and E. V. DeGraff, _The Song Wave_, American Book Company, 1882, pp. 48-49, "The Little Busy Bee" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #V59035
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" (tune) and references there
NOTES [136 words]: The version of this in Swan-BalladsAndFolkSongsFromMorningSunIowa is much reduced, with the lyrics out of order. There is one other slight hint that the song became traditional. On p. 30 of The Normal Pointer, Volume I, Number 1, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, December 1895 (available on Google Books), we read "'Working, working in the sunshine gathering honey all the day,' sang Aunt Mary as she came slowly up the garden walk with a heavy basket on her arm." So someone must have remembered this piece.
The song cannot be from before the 1860s, since multiple printings agree the tune is "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" I doubt the Song Wave version is the original printing, but I haven't found any that are earlier. There were a number of versions of it in the "School Song Knapsack," but all are from after 1882. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: SBMS021

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