Record scratch: you might be wondering how I got here.

Okay, as pretext, last night when it was raining, I let the dog out and she started throwing around with her mouth what turned out to be a cold and wet bee that landed on our patio rug. I shooed her away, mostly so she wouldn’t get stung and when I made her go out right before bed, the bee was still there, and surprisingly still alive so I grabbed my new planter and put it over the top of the bee so the dog would leave it alone. Plus, it was only 48 degrees out there, and wet, and I felt very bad for the bee. So I remembered from the internet, or Girl Scouts, when you see a tired and hungry bee, get it some sugar water for strength. So I did that on a tiny little pink spoon Baskin Robbins gave to my kid the other day so he could taste the sorbets. And the bee drank, or was trying not to drown, and so I put the planter back over him and the tiny spoon and went to bed. I figured it would at least keep him from getting wetter and possibly would create like a greenhouse warming event thing in there for him. And the planter is kinda shaped like a hive from Winnie the Pooh so I figured I was his new luxury Airbnb host and I could charge him a cleaning fee when he got better in the morning if he didn’t already fly out the drainage holes before I could could deliver the bill.

Well this morning came, as expected, and I pulled his little, plastic hive-mansion up and he was still there, and somehow still alive. The bad news was that 40 thousand ants had crashed the place and were all sipping from the sweet sugar water like they were at some kind ant sugar water rave. I will also be charging them my Airbnb service fee.

So I got a scrap paper and airlifted the bee out of there and onto the patio table in case the ants, all hyped up on the juice, decided to zombify the bee from the inside out, using his body to cause chaos and destruction, or however it happens on those bug documentaries.

I should probably stop here to mention that I am in a current escalating situation with the ants prior to, and concurrent with this newest bee update. As in, they are taking over my home this spring, causing my cat and dog to have to eat refrigerated kibble on a highly regulated and enforced schedule, the kids are vacuumed off after eating dinner, or candy, or a chip. Backpacks are emptied and hung outside until next needed, etc. And I just found out that ant queens live 30 years. Listen up, “Ant Queen”, 30 years ago I was driving my Honda CRX to school through quiet neighborhoods at 7 AM with the windows down singing “I Will Always Love You” at the top of my lungs. Get on my level.

Back to the cold bee.

So I put the little, nearly frozen bee up on the patio table for safety, ie the dog and the thousand strong evil ant army, and I got him some new sugar water and spoon that the ants had not sipped from, and I watched him struggle like he was a House of Wax victim but what more could I do?

That is until I took the dog for a walk and noticed all the dandelions the rain encouraged. So I picked a couple and brought them home and presented them to my new bee friend. Oh god, I sound like the lady from the Bee Movie. It’s not like that, I swear. I should delete this whole post now. I’m an absolutely not weird Bee Movie way, I put the flowers next to the bee. And he sat there. Like his insides were made of molasses. Or zombie ants. And he was like that the rest of the day.

Being a bee savior is very stressful, by the way.

I decided he probably needed to get warm and got to googling how cold is too cold for a bee to deal with his issues outside and not have to be brought into my house. Google told me to lovingly let the bee warm up on my skin. That’s not happening, sorry Bee Movie. But if you’re not a human lady in a relationship with a bee, the next thing to do is to put a facecloth in a shoe box with water droplets and breathing holes. That still sounds like a bee in my house once he warms up and busts through the shoebox, but he was cold and I felt awful for him, so I put him in a jar like a firefly, and i gave him a warm washcloth and a water droplet and the dandelions I got him and terrifyingly brought him inside.

I should mention here that I am paralyzingly phobic of bees, and wasps and the like. Like, on my future Wikipedia page, this will have its own bullet point. But my little bee started warming up! And he climbed on his dandelion and started rubbing his face and whole body all over it, and about fifteen minutes later I heard buzzing against the tinfoil on top of the jar and I screamed in panic and opened up the back door and somehow rolled the jar outside, the tinfoil falling off and the bee flying off into the sunlight finally peeking through the gray clouds. Hopefully he finds his way back to his little hive and tells all the bees how nice I was to him, my description, what I sound like, my face!!! and they leave me alone forever.

Anyway, I saved a bee and it was exhilarating and stressful and he better leave me a positive review on yelp.