Old Bee

Yesterday evening a very slow moving, pale furred bumble bee was (literally) hanging about on the lavender in the back garden.

Unlike the other busy little bess she was just bumbling about, seeming very tired. She wasn’t flying from bloom to bloom, but walking. I would guess she was quite an elderly bee. Or very tired and maybe unable to feed. I went in and got her some sugar water, then spent ages trying to find her again because of course once I had to put the camera down and lose her in the viewfinder I wouldn’t know where she was.

I did find her in the end, but made a mess of trying to offer her the sugar water. Unless I’m really close – like a few inches away – trying to direct a teaspoon to something small like a bee isn’t going to go well. So I sprinkled some on near where she was and she did slurp some, then eventually she did fly away.

But before she did I got some shots. Here she is hanging upside down from a lilac spray of lavender, her very dark face showing two massive eyes either side of her head, and a line of what I think is three little ones on the top of her head. And she’s got wide antennae, stretching out straight either side of her head. Her wings are resting straight down her back. And her fur is striped, pale and fuzzy where it would perhaps be gold if she were younger, and black.