Doing Our Part for Bees

We were going to vaccuum our living room with our little "shark" that the kids can use.  But as Bud went to retrieve it, he began to yell.  

"A bee!!  A bee!!"  

And sure enough, there was a huge bumblebee sitting, or more exactly comatose, on top of the vaccuum.  My first thoughts were about explaining death again, for the umpteenth time this week, but the bee fluttered, though did not fly.  Exhausted or injured by one of our resident cats?  Probably.

The bee fell off the vaccuum onto the floor.  

"MOM!  Save it!"

Al rescate, amigos!  Insect rescue.  I picked up a plastic Chinese take-out container an a piece of paper.  The kids just stared at me.  From a distance.  But I had seen Mama rescue bats like this and knew it would work.  I covered the bee with the container and then slipped the paper underneath, effectively trapping the bee.  We carried it outside with ceremony and haste.

As I released it, it merely stayed on the ground.  Oh, goodness.  We didn't help.  Stunned, perhaps?  

"Mom, it's not moving!" 

"Let's leave and give it some time."  So we did.  And what do you know, it wasn't there when we came back.  And we spotted several bees in our yard as we played outside.  Who's to say whether it was the one we had rescued?  I'd like to think so.  So would they.

Mission complida.