A poem I once knew as a child, but cannot recall in detail celebrates the flight of the bumblebee. Music and poetry pay tribute to the energy and ingenuity of these aerodynamic little wonders. I love them. I see them buzzing around the mauve and purple bells of our comfrey plant - all shapes, all sizes- busily being what they were made to be: beneficial bees.
Sadly although bumblebees can land on and take off from nectar bearing blossoms with the precision of a plane homing in on the flight deck, there is one air current that they cannot navigate; the downdraft from the soft-tops that consider our little hill (gradient 1:10) as an extension of Le Mans. I notice the bees. Slammed on to the pavement upended and undignifiedly waving their legs. I bend down and assist them into the prickly shelter of the pyrecantha bushes behind the cemetery railings. They take a little time to reorientate themselves to being right way up, wings smoothed down and in place, all legs working.
I rescue them for practical reasons - they are pollinators. Also, I cannot bear to see them upside down.
Next time you hear Rimsky-Korsakov's popular classic remember the BMWs and think of the plight of the bumblebee.
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