To the Gods
Last night on the brief walk to Pasta Moon to watch the game (Yessss!) and to eat pizza & vino with Nicole, I stopped suddenly, back tracked a few feet, bent over and examined the sidewalk. She said, “No Jenn, it’s not a dead bumble bee it’s a broken piece of asphalt. Come on!”.
That’s right. I collect dead bees. I store them in apothecary bottles and put them on my office shelves for the future, when the world’s currency is bee.
Anyway. The whole thing reminded me of a very sad photo shoot I did the other week of a honey bee in my garden. He was clearly dying and I took about 100 shots of the process. Poor guy was at the end of his buzz and simply sputtering out on the tip of a viola flower. Here he is:
14 Responses to “To the Gods”
Botanically Belize
Poor sweet bee… Though just sort of winding down atop a viola does give a different perspective on death, doesn’t it? Does not seem quite so sad.
Yep. He was headed to that big honey comb in the sky!
xoxo
I have a friend who has an excellent (if somewhat alarming) dead bee collection. I’ll tell him he’s not alone.
One day the currency will be bees? Oh no! i don’t have any, I need to start collecting some now. I hope the japanese bumblebee will be a strong currency
Was the bee really dying? They will of course die sometime like us all, but sometimes they do just snooze on a flower.
Yep. They act hugely different (of course) between taking a snooze and dying. I watched it for about one hour… pretty interesting stuff.
I’ve seen a few such bees in our gardens this year. The poor gals work so hard, tending brood, guarding the hive, and eventually in their ‘retirement’ they finally get to forage in the great outdoors for nectar and pollen, all in a remarkably short life. At least she found a pretty flower to lean on at the end.
Beautiful pictures of the sweet bee’s last moments…
jenn, do you sacrifice dead bees to your carnivores too?
No I go out and find live bugs to sacrifice. Morbid I know.
But did you wait around after that hour and collect this one in his death throes? Bee currency as the new gold standard — I love it — though it does make me a bit sad thinking of all the honeybee dieoff over the past few years….
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Oh, not morbid at all. I do the same
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