A drunken beeMy dear friend Elizabeth has been taking pictures of drunken bees in New York City, and she requested examples of the same from my garden.
Funnily enough, I already had this picture on the camera. But not so strange, really, because I have dozens of roses blooming at the moment . . . and they do tend to attract bees . . . and bee behavior seems to fascinate photographers. Tangobaby managed to catch an astounding close-up of one just the other day.
My bee is just a blackish blot, so you'll have to take my word for it . . . but this bee was so rapt, so avid and utterly absorbed, that it reminded me of a newborn baby at the breast. Like me, the bees prefer the sun . . . and when it is shining, they appear in clouds of buzzing bliss, like nectar-sugar addicts.
(This rose is in the middle of my herb garden, and I had to practically lay down on the ground, mashing mounds of chives and fennel, to get this view.)
And because I can't resist alliteration, and admire a writer who thinks to use the word "bibulous," a poem for my subject:
Bees
You voluble,
Velvety
Vehement fellows
That play on your
Flying and
Musical cellos,
All goldenly
Girdled you
Serenade clover,
Each artist in
Bass but a
Bibulous rover!
You passionate,
Powdery
Pastoral Bandits,
Who gave you your
Roaming and
Rollicking mandates?
Come out of my
Foxglove; come
Out of my roses
You bees with the
Plushy and
Plausible noses!
