Photo by Norma Thatcher, July 16, 2023

When I walked out through our flowers in the early morning of July 16, I came across the above sight. The bee was immobile, as still as death, and immediately a sense of sadness washed over me. I wondered if the bee had somehow come into contact with some chemical. And then I wondered if this is just how a bee dies from bee “old age.” I felt humbled to have witnessed its passing.

After several minutes, I went back into the house, took my husband’s hand, and led him outside to share this unique sight. The bee was gone. I started spluttering. “But it was right there…dead! Look at this photo I took.”

My husband is a honeybee keeper so he knows a lot about all bees. “Nope,” he said. “He wasn’t dead. Just sleeping. Bees do that sometimes; they fall asleep in flowers.”

The day before, our family had received the shocking news that my cousin Enid had died suddenly of a stroke. She was just 81 and had been an active, vibrant woman with an amazing sense of humor and a compassionate heart. Enid cared about people the way we all should care about people.

It was so sudden. She was alive one day and the next she was gone.

I remembered a long-ago poem (link below) about Janet, a little girl whose rooster, Chucky, had died overnight (coincidentally) from a bee sting. The child refused to believe that the rooster was dead. The last lines of the poem are:

And weeping fast as she had breath

Janet implored us, “Wake her from her sleep!”

And would not be instructed in how deep

Was the forgetful kingdom of death.

And so when I learned that bees sleep in flowers, I wished that Enid was like that bee. Nope, not dead. Just sleeping. Just resting quietly before resuming her busy life. Waiting for those who loved her to wake her from her sleep.

~~~~

Enid’s obituary

The poem Janet Waking

Article about bees sleeping in flowers