Bees don’t get a buzz from a drink – God knows I tried

Bumbling about in the garden, Rab goes into rescue mode to help a wabbit drone, only to find sugary water isn’t nectar to everyone – although shifty butterflies look less likely to resist a wee swally

Ihave been trying to persuade a bee to take a drink. Like many decent ratepayers, as recounted recently, I like to help bees who look out of sorts in the garden.

One day recently, I was sat out the back reading, when I noticed, on a storage box to my right, a bee that was just quietly sitting. He was facing me, as if he found my reading fascinating.

To test if he was still with us, or if he’d conked out, I moved a hand towards him from one side. In response, he raised his left arm and one of his legs defensively. It was like a kung fu position. I’d found the Bruce Lee of the bee world.

He did the same when I went round the other side. It was a slow, unconscious, instinctive movement, and I could tell the chappie was ailing. The sun had gone and the temperature had dropped, so perhaps it was something to do with that.

I have read that bees get wabbit when it’s too cold but also when it’s too hot. They sound like me. I’d also read that, if you find one languishing, you should put out a dish of sugary water for it to drink. Not honey, because our stuff in jars can harbour bacteria harmful to them, but good old sugar, the same stuff we’re enjoined to avoid.

So, I found a shallow jar lid, half-filled it with sugary water, and put it down beside the beastie. But he just adopted his drowsy dragon defensive pose and wouldn’t touch the libation.

There’s a spot on a windowsill that generally gets the sun better at the back, so I returned to the house, fetched a piece of light card, slid it under him and moved him to the sill.

Unfortunately, it was still dull, and he just beetled off, so to say, and sat under the shelter of the bottom rim of the window-frame.

I should say that, all this time, he was shaking his bottom – getting his sting ready which, in the past, I’ve found bees reluctant to do. Still, that lessened a little as he got used to me and just pegged me, as wildlife tend to do, as a harmless galoot.

I left him overnight and, next day, found he was still alive but weak. Fortunately, the sun had come out and was bathing the sill in warmth, so I moved him directly into its rays. How quickly he revived! He flexed his legs then his wings then, unfortunately, scuttled along the sill and got lost among some ivy.

I got him out and was fascinated at the fastidiousness with which he cleaned himself, having collected bits of gunk (one of which I picked off myself) on his person. At the second time of asking, having revived once more in the sun, he took off – back to life and freedom.

I left the sugary drink, and several others, on the sill but haven’t seen a bee go near them, even though there are plenty such beasties on the flowers nearby.

I may be mistaken but thought I saw a butterfly sitting briefly on a bar stool at the Window Sill Arms.

Perhaps the butterflies take a drink – but the bees are beetotal.