This section is called:
I Have an Odd Fascination with Bees
Gentle Orphan Queens
Leafcutter bees are what scientist call solitary creatures. Laymen call it loneliness. And that, perhaps, is why they rarely sting. They have no one to protect. They don't form colonies or make honey. While most species of bees live under monarchy, every female leafcutter bee is a queen. Having been raised among such gentle creatures , farming the fields they pollinate, it has fallen upon me to tell of their simple lives.
A newborn bachelor leafcutter bee will use his one to two weeks of life searching for a female so he can do his part to perpetuate the life cycle. But he will never meet his children, won’t be there to kiss them goodnight or keep them safe in a thunderstorm. I wonder if he knows that, if he realizes he will die before midsummer comes. What about his new lover? Does she know his fate? Shortly after the male has done his job, he dies. The only evidence of his life will be his offspring.
The widowed female bee will leave his side to gather pollen in which to nest her eggs. She is an artist in her busyness, creating lacey trimmings along the edges of leaves and flower petals from the alfalfa field that is her world. She tucks the resulting blankets into the bee-size holes my dad, the farmer, drilled in planks of wood. The moist leaves and pedal pieces will dry to form swaddles for her children. When Mother has finished the silky beds, she lays a larva in each one. Oh, to be a sleepy bee, swaddled in a cocoon of purple flower petals! The process is tirelessly repeated 35-40 times to form a cradle for each offspring. Her labor is her glory. As with Father, she too will die before her children awaken in spring. And so, as the cold of fall creeps in, she rests at last, never to rise again.
When warmth returns months later, a tiny new orphan bee awakens. She eats the pollen that Mother left for breakfast and opens the leaf door to her new world. She greets the sun like a prayer and joins her numerous siblings in fluffing their antennas with their forelegs. The chill of a June morning keeps her from flying, so she joins the hundreds of drowsy bees stumbling parentless, helpless on the ground. Though without Father and Mother their influence guides her through genetics.
It is in this gentle loneliness that she will crawl onto my outstretched finger, look into my inquisitive eyes, and wonder if I am Mother or God. I will gaze at her fuzzy self and whisper, hello new friend.
I can't help but feel that like the bees, I have Parents I have not seen. Divine Beings who placed me in a field of purple flowers, who's influence I feel but cannot see. I wonder if Father sees me the way I do new bees. So small, so fragile, a little dazed. Before I opened my eyes into this new world, did Mother hold me tight? Did she weep, knowing she could not come with me? When I'm lonely and They feel far, I think of the cocoon of purple petals. I look for evidence of Them in things like bees. And every so often there comes a time when I feel my Maker's touch, holding me, greeting me, warming me. I find evidence of Them in my world and sometimes in myself. In the way I hold this baby bee on my finger before placing her on my shoulder. And like the bee, I linger near the touch of God until the morning air is warm enough for me to fly into the field.
When next June comes, I will take it upon myself to find her young and tell them about their gentle Mother.




Bees are from Heaven, Wasps are from Hell
In the first five minutes of weeding my garden, I felt a pinch in my arm. A sting if you will. Trying to play it cool, because the neighbors were gardening too, I swatted the air around me and resumed gardening. That’s when I was ambushed.
I made no sound. I’ve never been one to scream. Instead, I smacked my head, trying to squash the wasps between my hand and my skull, all while running from one end of the yard to the other. I proceeded to perform a series of pump fakes in the driveway. Reasoning that if bees have knees, then these wasps must have ankles for me to break. I realized the neighbors might be watching, so I made my way to the back door. In the process, I released the hair tie from my bun and whipped that tangled mess back and forth like Willow Smith’s debut single. Using a tactic I learned from a certain 8th grade basketball opponent, my hair became a nunchuck to ward off any remaining wasps before I dove through the door. Still in a whirl of paranoia, I bolted to the bathroom. In mere seconds, my head was under the shower faucet. A dead wasp landed in the tub. I washed one more wasp out of my hair then scrubbed every inch of my scalp. If there was ever a time for rinse and repeat, this was it.
After a thorough shampooing, I checked each sting. Two on my head. One on my left arm where I usually get shots. One on each shoulder blade that made it through two layers of clothing. How many layers is enough to prevent a stinger from reaching skin? How thick is a beekeeper suit? If I had one, I would never be stung again. But a bee suit would make me look ridiculous and apparently I’m more concerned with what the neighbors think of me than being stung by wasps. I always thought I didn’t care much about what others thought of me. Five silent wasp stings taught me otherwise.



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