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Sunday, July 26, 2015

Sharing my beer with Mr. Bee



The is another in the continuing saga of lunching with Mr. Bee!

It happens almost every time I sit down on the terrace to have lunch. In flies Mr. Bee, drawn by the aroma of my lunch. He flies up to me and he goes through an elaborate ritual of identification. He flies in a zig-zag fashion across and up and down in front of me, which gives me a good idea of what it must feel like to be scanned. Once he completes that process he then turns his attention to what's on the menu.

Typically he goes to the far side of my plate where he will sample the meat selection. Today we were having chuletas, (pork chops). He found a sliver and took that in hand and flew off. He was gone only a short time when he returned, but this time he was curious as to what I was drinking. I could understand that because it was a super hot day. Normally I would be having a juice, but this time I felt like a beer.

I had only poured a little from the can, so the level in my glass was close to the bottom. Bee perched on the rim of my glass and decided he might get into trouble by dropping so far down, so he moved to the can. When you pour liquid from a beer can a small pool is left around the rim. Bee noted this and gave it a try.

I cautioned him about drinking and flying and told him that he was subject to the same rules as airline pilots, but he chose to ignore me. He sucked up all the liquid that was there, then he stumbled over to the opening of the can, looked down into the darkness, and although it was evident that there was more in the can, he thought better of going in, and flew off.

I poured myself some more only to see that within minutes he had returned with a friend, and this time he, or the friend went immediately to the beer and happily sucked it up. I'm not making this up when I tell you that when he flew away from the can he first flew sideways and crashed onto the table before quickly flying off in a very direct path. Sorry, I couldn't help but laugh out loud, and I took another drink. After pouring some more a fly came to see what all the excitement was about. It put down its head and took a drink and the reaction was immediate. It stumbled sideways, then went back to drinking some more before flying off.

By this time there was nothing left in the can, which was just as well as now I had a whole swarm of friendly party types who had come to try out the firewater. It was time for me to make a hasty retreat. I imagined that over at the nest the Queen had a problem with two or three of the the workers, who declared that they didn't feel like doing any more work for the day.

If they have karaoke in the bee world I can imagine three of my visitors doing their impression of The Bee Gees, "Staying Alive." Can you?

Copyright (c) 2015  Eugene Carmichael