An attempt to rescue a Bee.

We came home last Sunday after having spent the Saturday night away at CBC's Brother's and then driving onto the aforementioned Christening.  I went to open our sliding patio doors and put my hand towards the curtain to move it out the way and let our a scream!

For, millimetres from my outstretched fingers was an enormous bumblebee!  It was prone on the curtains.  

I was horrified that it had been trapped inside over a day and worried that it was dying because of my neglect.

I've heard many individual talk of giving bees sugar water to revive them so they can fly off safely.

In practice, removing an extremely large bumble bee from the curtains to do this was rather tricky.  I managed to remove it somehow and get in onto a garden tray after several attempts where it buzzed at me in a rather pathetically menacing way.  Attempts to get it onto or near the honey water spoon I had prepared was difficult and it seemed to be trying to avoid the spoon in its plodding painstaking movements.

Eventually, thank goodness, it put out its tongue or proboscis- and started to drink.

 It stayed for about 5 minutes and then stopped and tried to get under the leaves.  I really didn't know what to do, was it trying to hide or get past the leaves to the 'exit' from the tray, so I tried to move the leaves. A spattering of rain began and I started to worry about the bee.  I decided to try and pick him up and put him onto some leaves and a shrub so he could hide but he didn't seem very happy.

The rain became somewhat heavier and I had to leave him. I put the spoon underneath.

The reality of trying to rescue a bee was much less of a 'miracle cure' than I have been lead to believe by other people's experiences and I wish I had been able to do more. I felt really melancholy about the whole affair- I had tried my best but not seen great results.

Have you ever tried to rescue a bee with sugared water and what happened?

xx