Poor Bee

I just saw this beautiful bee outside, racing across the asphalt on all fours! All sixes, whatever. He was scuttling at speed. He must have got hit on his bee head or something, and woke up thinking he was a beetle.

I've never seen a bee trucking along like that on foot. I bent down to get a better look at him, and then I said what I always do:

"Poor bee."

He was so cute. Big black glossy in the middle, and then just this pale, lustrous fuzzy yellow band at each end, back and front. He was almost round! Big fat bee.

"Poor bee. What's wrong with you, bee?"

There didn't look like anything wrong with him. All his legs were working away. His wings looked fine - no sign of being bent or injured. The leaf-like branching veins, iridescent and symmetrical.

"You ok, bee? Why you walking when you can fly?"

Then suddenly I realized that I was standing on the asphalt outside my place of employment, hunched over with hands on knees talking to a bee.

But he was a cool bee though!

I always say "Poor bee." My girlfriend and I hike a lot, and we run into bees quite often: "poor bee." Whichever of us sees the bee first says it softly, a benediction: "poor bee!" We do not wave at the bee, or try to shoo it away. We are simply still; we continue walking, still. The bee buzzes on, having been sympathized with.

Bees like us, I think, since we have adopted this method.

I've only ever been stung once!

Poor bee.