TINY TUESDAY

Mr. HCB went off to cricket at about 8.45 and has arrived safely, but I’m glad it’s him and not me who will be sitting out in the chilly weather - but each to his own, as they say!

After he left, I wandered around the garden, still in my pink robe, to see if I could find anything suitable for Tiny Tuesday.  I took quite a few shots of flowers and flies, but then came across this tiny bumblebee overdosing on the nectar from the inside of one of our hollyhocks.  I wasn’t quite fast enough to get the shot of it in the hollyhock, but as soon as it was absolutely covered in nectar - sorry correction, this apparently is pollen - so I have learned something else today - thanks to Bootneck -  it came out and sat on a leaf right next to the flower.

I wandered around the rest of the garden, but then came back to the hollyhock leaf to find that the bumblebee was still on there.  I therefore took several more shots and then went indoors. I could see the plant from the conservatory so kept looking out and was a bit concerned that the bumblebee wasn't moving. I went out there again but it was just very still. This carried on for about the next hour, and I was getting more and more worried that there was something wrong with the bee or that perhaps it had taken on too much nectar.

Our next door neighbour used to keep bees so I popped over there and asked both Lynn Mike what they thought.  I showed Lynn a photograph when she said that it was fine, but probably just needed a little bit of honey to get it going again and it should be okay.  Mike told me to put some honey on the leaf and the bumblebee should eat/drink it and then fly off.  Lynn gave me a spoonful of honey in a little pot, as I said I didn’t have any and then I went back indoors to find a straw.  I did wonder about this remedy myself, as having read Bootneck’s recent Blips, thought I might be able to help in some small way.

I tried to put some honey on the leaf, but this little bumblebee grabbed hold of the straw, so I took it over to the wall, put the straw on our little dish of marbles, that we keep topped up with water for the bees and then sat down and just watched it drinking in the honey - see extra.  I even managed to video it to send to my friend’s son, who loves things like this.  

So now, over three hours later, I have just been out into the garden and found that the bumblebee has flown off - and I feel quite proud that I helped it.  I then had to decide which shot to post - I have about a hundred, so whittled them down and here is my offering for Tiny Tuesday - Buffy, the bumblebee - I’m not sure of the exact variety, but he certainly deserves his fifteen minutes of fame on Blip.  And now I had better go and get dressed!

Next time you put honey on your bread, think about this:

“It takes a bee 10,000,000 trips 
     to collect enough nectar 
          to make one pound of honey.”
Sue Monk Kidd

A couple of bee jokes:

Did you hear about the bee that was hard to understand?
He was a mumble bee.

What did the shop owner tell the customer who ordered five bees and was given six?
The last one is a free-bee.