A Bee's Story

I will admit it. I'm a nature nerd. I involve myself in the lives of other beings. I move earthworms aside when I'm digging so I don't chop them up, and rescue insects that are drowning in containers of water. I apologize to things I inadvertently hurt. So, when I saw this struggling bumble bee, I had to intervene.

I noticed that she (I'm not sure why I knew she was a she-bee) was staggering around my flower bed, seemed disoriented, and couldn't fly. It was hot out in the sun, and that probably wasn't helping her.

Eventually, she climbed up on my marguerite daisies and poked around the centers, but she didn't seem to get any satisfaction--she also seemed a bit frantic.

So, I developed the idea that perhaps these were the wrong flowers for her. I picked an azalea and laid it in front of her. She climbed inside and drank the nectar greedily.

I didn't know how to tell her that the azaleas were elsewhere, so I used the plucked azalea flower to lure her into a flowerpot and transported her over to an azalea shrub.

It worked. She climbed deeply into each flower and sipped nectar. Some of the flowers must have already been emptied, so some she spent a few seconds in, and others a few minutes.

In return, she gave me some beautiful photo-opportunities, and I greedily snapped away while she nourished herself.

I'm just now getting around to replacing my previous azaleas, so the shrub is tiny. She'd soon visited each and every flower.

Again, I trapped her into the flower pot and tried to find more suitable flowers for her. At this point, though, she'd had about enough of me. She climbed up a tall pine tree and disappeared. I'm sure she'll be fine now.