Sometimes bees can be a bit dim - rather like us. This poor girl was exhausted, but she would not drink sugar syrup from a saucer as the other bee did. It was an overcast evening a couple of weeks ago and most flowers were closing down for the night. I popped her on a little geranium where she flopped feebly about, poking her proboscis into the stamens which weren't giving her what she wanted. Finally she seemed to give up and folded her legs under her, as if waiting to die.
Feeling desperate, I brushed some syrup onto the flower she was perched on and gently nudged it towards her...
In protest, she waved her legs about and then began to clean some of the syrup from her feet. The penny dropped and she began eagerly licking the syrup from the petals before taking off. As if this was not enough, while I was filming, there was a knock at the door, which I ignored. You can just about hear it at the end and the chimney jackdaws cackling with indignation. And if you listen very carefully with the volume up you can just hear the nice Mozart I was playing.
The knock at the door was a dear friend and her daughter, popping over from another village to say hello. One of the few people I am always happy to see, even if the cottage did look as if a bomb had hit it. My fellow bee loving friend has recently acquired her first hive, so it was a lovely coincidence that she dropped in at that very moment, just as excited as I was at another bee-life saved. We hurried through to the back yard, where the 'patient' was nuzzling around in the thyme blossom and then watched as she bumbled off, over the fence, hopefully to return home.
Another sweet surprise - one of Andy's young work colleagues has also started keeping bees - and spun his first batch of honey last week. It took him longer than he imagined as he had a bumper crop. He started at 8pm and didn't get to bed until 4am - how kind he was to pass on a jar to me; it is quite delicious and if he's not careful I will be sending him a bottle or three of my homebrew...poor lad won't know what day of the week it is.
