an amusing blog from Peter Alan

An amusing story with messages from a partner read and smile 🙂

A Conversation with a Pollinator!

I was sitting in the garden late yesterday afternoon enjoying a small aperitif as you do…when the tranquility was somewhat interrupted by the constant but not unpleasant buzzing of a couple of bees.

One landed on a nearby shrub and feeling a little alone thought I would start up a conversation….to get an insight in the world of the pollinator.

“Ah a pollinator”, I said to attract his attention.

“Bee mate, not pollinator, bee, see if we wore t-shirts with our name on I couldn’t fit pollinator on it, or I would need a bigger body”, he replied rather tersely I thought.

“I see bee”

“If you are starting with the poetry stuff the conversation ends, there is enough of that in an English Country Garden gubbins out there to fill a book, so no poetry please you see I am Bee 1, over there Bee 3 etc.”

“No 2 Bee?”

“No there never is mate, Shakespeare is your problem there we just got fed up of the 2 Bee or not 2 Bee jokes2, he went on, “we aren’t too keen on the Bee puns either Bee Happy, Bee Have , Bee Leave…..I said we should have copyrighted the name and the image and brought in an image licencing company, we wouldn’t have this problem, we wouldn’t have to spend time making honey, flitting from flower to flower and avoiding everything from enthusiast fly swatters to laminated car windscreens, we could have watched the wonga roll in and never lifted a wing again, but no says the Queen Bee, you’re natural capital she said, an eco-system service she said, what’s one of them I thought a washing machine cycle! I don’t know I said I am just a simple bee”

I thought moving the conversation on might be advisable, the ice was melting in my drink and I suspect he was getting impatient.

“So how has it been for you recently?”

“Well funny you should ask, I’ll get 3 bee to join us, he’ll tell you”

“I used to be in 3 bee at school”

“Don’t start did I mention puns?”

Bee 3 happily landed next to his mate and I knew this was a bad move.

“How has it been bee 3?” said Bee 1 nudging his mate

“Manic, absolutely manic, can’t get the workforce, you see for years you lot,” a leg was pointed accusingly at me, “you lot, you have mown every verge to within an inch of its life, thrashed the margins in the fields, eradicated wildflowers and vainly pursued the perfect lawn and put enough weed and feed on it to make it Centre Court at Wimbledon.”, he paused, “has it helped you?, no weeds always win, then there is the neonics,” he looked cynically at me, “don’t tell me they haven’t been using them bee cause, see what I did there, we know you have.”

“Exactly bee 3 those neonics lethal mate, I mean I like a drink, the occasional mead down at the hive after a shift but those neonics, those drugs road to ruin, I remember a mate of mine bee 99, nice bee used to like a tipple then he started hanging around in farmers fields, near those crops, I said not to and he said he could stop any time, started coming back to the hive late claimed he got lost, flying around in circles disorientated, mumbling and then bang dead!”

Shocked I said “what the neonics killed him?”

“No the 16:00 Norwich to London train, he flew into it”

“Not like him,” chipped in bee 3,”he did like trains but always stayed off the tracks, I blame the neonics”

“So,” said bee 1, “manic because so many went the way of bee 99, staffing levels plummeted but then so did supply, no wildflowers, clover so we weren’t too busy until this year when you lot have gone mad, Bee Lines, no mow May, rewilding gardens, I have flowers coming out of every orifice”

“But”, said bee 3, “got no staff to get around them all have we, me and him are putting in double shifts as it is, not a hope we can collect it all, we thought about bringing in overseas labour but then the Queen Bee said invasive species and that was that and also and I am not bee ing, see what I did there, funny but they can bring in diseases and that can be a bit more devastating than neonics, so no we will have to wait and see, the Queen Bee says there will be more workers next year but management always say that”

“Anyway” said bee 1 “can’t sit here all day we have to bee off, see I’m doing it now”

They both looked skyward just as a very colourful and majestic bird flew over.

“What the hell is that?” they said in unison.

“I think,” I said, “it is a European Bee Eater”

“That’s all we bloomin need, we do flower puns as well,” said bee 1, “have to tell the Queen to increase the breeding line”.

“Right we’re off”, said bee 3, “and if the bird comes back and asks you never seen us and if you did we was wasps!”