The Beautiful Bumblebee

Now everybody knows, I suppose, without bees in your garden, nothing grows. — Craig Smith

Image created in Canva by Author

I’m going to tell you ta story. Don’t panic — it’s short but it does have a lot of meaning (well, to me at least).

What seems like a hundred years ago when I was 11 years of age, I got my first pair of glasses.

I can remember vividly that day. They arrived in the afternoon, and immediately my mother told me to put them on.
“Oh, mom, you’ve got wrinkles!” I exclaimed.
“Take them off!!!” she gasped.

I saw a lot of “firsts” that day — my sister’s freckles, my brother’s burgeoning lip fuzz, the veins on a leaf and the individual petals on the daisy flowers that scattered the lawn, in fact, I even saw the blades of grass.

But the thing that fascinated me the most — was the bumblebee. Why? Well, I had never seen the wings before.

Oh, I instinctively knew that she must have had wings because she flew, but I’d never seen her wings — never seen how small and delicate they were.

From then on the bumblebee became my hero. I got to know her very well as we had a lot of them around my home garden. To top it off, she became even more impressive when my father told me that, scientifically, she wasn’t supposed to be able to fly. I should have guessed my father was pulling my leg, but at the time it enhanced the wonder I held of this fat ball of yellow and black fluff.

It was years later before I discovered that, of course, bumblebees are designed to fly. (And if you want to know where the myth originated: Bumblebees Can’t Fly )

So, until I had discovered otherwise, I felt we shared the same attitude — not supposed to be able to fly — but just watch me!

I was so enamoured of this beautiful bumblebee that, in my teens, I designed a stylised version as my logo so I could take her with me to remind me that anything is possible.

What prompted me to write this? Pesticides are killing bee populations worldwide. I do not doubt that it will be affecting my darling bumblebee, as well.

We need to do something about what the world is doing with the chemicals that are routinely used on farms, in private gardens and garden centres if, as reports shows, the bees in these areas are in a much more vulnerable state.

The world cannot lose the beautiful bee — honey or bumble!