bees

[LENELL ELIZABETH ANN]

AAVE "be" verbs pattern nicely with SAE.  For a concise intro, and a
specific reference to "bees", see Finegan 1994, pg 425.  He claims it is
an inflected variant used to indicate continuous, repeated, or habitual
action.

One unconnected AAVE usage I have collected is
        I beens gonna (do it).
        I beens wanting one bad.

Presumably this is similar to SAE "have been", and may have been idiolect.

Elizabeth Lenell
Univerisity of Colorado-Boulder
Graduate student