! Wild Bees, Lost Souls

The bees, this year, have come before the swallows dare and take the wings of April inadvisedly; ignoring the cloud of jasmine around the open door, incurious, it seems, about the front garden’s offerings, they swoop into the house, take a left turn where the corridor gets darker, and land up in the front room; where they swoop again, then like lost souls start for here and there, change flight-plan, and end up nosing uselessly against the window which doesn’t open; crawl a bit; and surprisingly soon, fall down, on their backs, legs folded in some final surrender just enough like a human being, to chill… I take the kitchen strainer since it’s larger than a jam-jar, reaches further, dab a touch of first-aid honey on the rim, persuade them to settle on its promise, and whisk them off to the front door, tap them into freedom. I thought that bees were focussed, busy, pretty bright, with radar, iPods, mobile/ cell-phones all built in; this year, they’re aimless as illegal immigrants hoping to exist, but not to work.. surely even wild bees have a sense of home? ‘Go back where you came from…’ I yell at them like some nationalist speaker at a rally… there is now no Limbo for these lost souls, it seems; bees, who through the centuries were said to have close links to human souls… it’s puzzling, disturbing, too close for comfort, or for ignoring.