Bee Movie & honey

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.

How to save a bee

I opened up the polytunnel on a cold, grey afternoon and heard a dull buzzing. There, twitching feebly in the soil, was a tired bumble bee. She probably wore herself out trying to find an exit and the chilly, overcast weather can't have helped much. I remembered something I'd heard about sugar syrup, so I gently coaxed her onto my hand and took her inside.

I placed her on a saucer and quickly mixed up some cold water and caster sugar, making a liquid syrup she could drink and dolloped it on her plate. She was so dopey and weak I had to carefully steer her to the puddles, but once she realised what it was, she began drinking.

As her feet were slipping I popped a leaf under her. After about five minutes she seemed to have drunk her fill and was anxiously crawling about, already a little stronger.

I took her back into the garden and settled her on a pot where she collected her wits, had a little wash and eventually - well, see for yourselves! (There is some lovely birdsong in the background too).

Bees are having a dreadful time of it, with the combined efforts of mankind and diseases; although we can't keep a hive, I am going to make more of an effort to look after the weary ones, especially now I know how easy - and effective - it is. When the bees die out, we are not far behind.

edit - many thanks to Jill of Third Age Musings, for letting me know that this was a Red-tailed Bumblebee, Bombus Lapidarius and I now wonder if she was a Queen, emerging from hibernation?