"The birds and the bees" is a colloquial expression referring to arite of passage in the lives of most children when parents beginsex education by starting to explain human sexuality, sexual intercourse and pregnancy to them.[1]
According to tradition, "the birds and the bees" aremetaphorical narratives sometimes told to children in an attempt to explain the mechanics and results ofsexual reproduction through reference to easily observed occurrences in nature: beescarry and deposit pollen into flowers, a visible and easy-to-explain parallel tosperm andfertilization; while female birdslay eggs, a similarly visible and easy-to-explain parallel to internalovulation andgiving birth.
While the earliest documented use of the expression remains somewhat nebulous, it is generally regarded as having been coined bySamuel Taylor Coleridge. Published in 1825, Coleridge's first verse in the poem "Work Without Hope" refers to both bees and birds in reference to the coming fecundity of spring:[2]
All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
One scholar notes an earlier reference to "birds and bees" on columns inSt. Peter's Basilica from a 1644 entry inthe diary of English writerJohn Evelyn.[3]
By the late 19th century, the phrase was common enough to appear in such works as essays byJohn Burroughs and publications explaining reproduction to children.[4]
Another commonly cited use of the phrase is American naturalist John Burroughs' 1875 set of essays, "Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and other Papers." These were attempts to provide children with simple explanations of nature, but there is no attempt at sex education. Dr. Emma Frances Angell Drake described the birds and bees in a section of the publication "The Story of Life," which was widely distributed between 1893 and 1930. In her explanation of reproduction to her young daughters, she used images of blue eggs in the robin's nest, the wind blowing pollen dust from one plant to the other, and bees gathering honey from the flowers.