Other people have much more amusing animals to make them contemplate their lives. Ravens, Pigeons and Tigers, they get, I get a bee. It could be a killer African Bee but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a bee. something that if it lashes out in anger, even if it only does this just once it doesn’t matter, dies.
My contemplation came about while walking down the hall this morning. In the uncovered reflective well of the light fixture I heard a buzzing. Buzzing and the clatter of something against the light bulb and light fixture. It was a loud buzzing, amplified no doubt, by the shallow metal cone it found itself trapped in. On my first walk past I thought it was blow fly. The second time I wondered if it might be a bee. The third time I was convinced it was a bee. Convinced by the dozens of bees that were asleep on the flyscreen outside. The same bees that scared the shit out of me when I turned on the light and saw them darkening my window, unsure if they were inside or outside. There presence has explained why the upstairs of my house smells like honey comb when it is warm outside.
Seeing the bee in the light fixture, now silent and still as it sat there, I wondered how long it would survive inside. How long do bees live for? Is this conditional to the amount of food it gets? Do bees need food? I have no idea, I feel like I should know more about these useful animals, but not enough to find out. Eventually my thoughts turned to the social aspect of the bee’s death. Would this bee be missed? Was it already missed and was this why there was a mass of bees on the flyscreen? Did it miss its hivemates? Was it going to miss them? I decided that the idea of a bee slowly starving to death, alone, was too awful and idea to contemplate. It was also something that I could not passively sit by and let happen, and that action must be taken.
I thought about releasing it out of the window near the hive but was concerned that the bees would swarm my room, instead I opened a window at the opposite end of the house and pushed it out to its freedom. I hope it had the sense to find its home.
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