Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.

Busy

Busy as a beaver.
—Anonymous

Busy as a beehive attacked by a bear.
—Anonymous

Busy as a boy killing snakes.
—Anonymous

Busy as a good wife at an oven.
—Anonymous

Busy as a hen with one chick.
—Anonymous

Busy as a humming bird with two tails.
—Anonymous

Busy as a one-armed paperhanger with the hives.
—Anonymous

Busy as a pigeon at a shooting match.
—Anonymous

Busy as squirrels in a wheel.
—Anonymous

Busy as a ticking clock.
—Anonymous

Busy as a hen with fifteen chickens in a barnyard.
—J. R. Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms

Busy as a cross-eyed boy at a three-ring circus.
—Rex Beach

Busy as a child at play.
—Samuel Butler

Busy as a cow’s tail in fly time.
—James Fenimore Cooper

Busy as the devil in a gale of wind.
—Sir John Denham

Busy as the day is long.
—Vincent Stuckey Lean (Collectanea)

Busie as a bee.
—John Lyly

Busy as the day.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay

Death … was busy as on a battle field.
—John Skelton

As busy as bees in a glass hive.
—James Smith

Busy as the brooks.
—Henry D. Thoreau

Busy as horses in a field of clover.
—John Wolcott

Busy as a wren.
—William Wordsworth

Busy as the lightning.
—William Wordsworth