John F. Leeming (1895–1965)

Although this is a sequel, and the author in fact includes a cheerful introduction by the author saying he has been repeatedly warned that sequels are never as good as the originals, this is in fact quite a good companion to Claudius the Bee. This time the be scientist has accidentally spilled some of his reducing potions on a bunch of blackberries which are eaten by an unsuspecting pair of humans, Mrs. Bustle-Loudly and Mr. Clutterbuck., who have been shrunk to bee-size, and so Mr. Tawney, the boy hero of the first book, is asked to reduce again and help deal with them. The evil wasps capture them and are defeated again. The overall plot is similar to the first book, but Mrs. Bustle-Loudly, an aggressive snob, is a genuine comic creation and the best new feature of te book, though I wonder if some of the jokes (about her hoping her husband will be on the Honours List, for example) would make sense to most children, especially American children. I recall I got the joke when I first read the story, but then I had read a lot of British fiction.… (meer)

I remembered this book vividly from having read it about 50 years ago --I could still recite the bees' national anthem "O Claudius the Bee/O Claudius the Bee/ What a pretty sight it is/To See him spread his wings and fizz..." --I remembered the villain Black Michael of Wormwood (who owes something to Black Michael Duke of Strelsau in The Prisoner of Zenda), and gruff old Colonel Mainsting (who owes something to Col. Sapp) always correcting anyone who refers to bumblebees living in a hive "The net, sir, the nest!"
The plot involves a boy, called Mr. Tawney, who rescues a bee trapped inside a window (I wonder if it influenced C.S. Lewis's use of that image in a poem) -- as a reward, the boy is invited to drink a miniaturizing potion and visit the nest --but the gala celebrations are interrupted by the villain Black Michael, who manages to capture the bee king Claudius and Mr. Tawny, and has a plot to betray the nest to evil wasps. However, Mr. Tawney escapes, and comes back with his mother's needle as a sword to slay the wasp captain, free Claudius and save the nest, after which he takes all the bees on a cruise in his miniature boat model before regaining his normal size (with promises to return, fulfilled in the sequel).
The author has a lot of nice details --the bees use glowworms for lighting, thorns for swords and thimbles for drums --but the technology is not always consistent --a reporter has an unexplained camera, for example, and especially in the illustrations, some bees wear human clothing or accessories and others do not. There is a certain amount of satire -- the bees pride themselves on the songs they have learned from the radio, but get some lyrics wrong an include the time signal pips as part of the song. There may be a bit of class/race feeling --"Black Michael's" henchmen are darker and rougher than most bees --but it is not as excessive as some fiction of the time. The author in some ways presents the nest as a utopia, with everyone living in nice, uniformly designed, housing, and working at jobs they enjoy. Over all, I still enjoyed rereading it. The illustrations are fun, reminiscent of Robert Lawson. Disney is said to have optioned it, but as far as I know, never produced it --a pity.… (meer)