For readers who want to shake this one up themselves, I've already done the homework: here's the full list of ingredients, bottle by bottle. Now, the story behind the glass.
The Bee's Knees is an unmistakable child of American Prohibition (1920-1933), invented, according to the most credited theory, by Frank Meier at the Ritz Paris Bar around 1921. The name comes from 1920s American slang: "the bee's knees" meant "excellent, fantastic." And the cocktail's logic was even better: honey and lemon were used to mask the atrocious taste of bathtub gin made illegally in basements.
An alternative theory attributes the invention to Margaret Brown, aka "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," the survivor of the Titanic turned socialite in Paris and author of Golden Era American Cocktails. True or not, the Bee's Knees became the drink of illegal parties in New York speakeasies, and still today retains the taste of joyous rebellion.
If the story has tempted you to try this cocktail at home, don't underestimate the role of equipment. A complete barman kit like this one on Amazon gives you all the basic professional tools in one go. And for a more ambitious setup, a professional cocktail bar station is the piece of furniture that takes home bartending to the next level.