The Day a Honeybee Thanked Me

  Updated 12-18-17 

    The windows in our carpeted sun-room are modern.
    They're 5 in total, bipartite and each is approximately 3' x 4', hence making me feel entitled to refer to this as a sun-room.
    Plants thrive in this room, even in the dead of a cold, gloomy winter.
    Toys can be strewn across this room while the rest of the house remains (seemingly) intact.
    It's a great room.
    
    Now the windows are open.
    An old, plug-in fan is humming; my child, napping.
    When flying insects occasionally and inevitably enter the house, through the backdoor, which is in the sun-room, they prefer to buzz around the sun-room's spacious windows. 
    They want out. 
    It's in their nature.
    
    About a week ago a honeybee accidentally made its way into our home.
    Now you may be thinking, "A honeybee, that's not so special."
    And if you are thinking that, you are thinking perhaps like the majority of the population.
    And, if this is the case, you and the majority of the population are flawed in your thinking.
    You see, my friend, honeybee populations are dwindling, cliche, at an alarming rate.

    In the past year alone the United States has lost a whopping 44% of its honeybee population.
    
    Hard to fathom? Yes.
    Back to my little sun-room story? Yes.
    So, I heard a buzzing.
    I looked at the window from which it was coming.
    "A honeybee!" I gasped.
    "Honey," I called out to my hubby.
    "There's a bee. It's trapped in our window trying to get out."
    My husband and I were familiar with the plight of the bee so we knew this was serious business.
    He came to the sun-room and somehow pinched the latches of the top-portion of the bipartite window, lowering it, easily and effortlessly (this is the part I didn't know how to do; hopefully no feminists will hate me for saying that). 
    As he lowered the top portion of the window the honeybee gracefully and hastily made his exit.
    We felt good as we watched him fly away.

    A day or so later I was picking up dog poop in the yard as my 2 year old gleefully explored (with shoes on).
    De repente (all of the sudden) what but a honeybee flew from down under, seemingly from nowhere, and gently tapped me right on the tip of my nose.
    I was a bit taken aback. I felt it was the same honeybee we had released.
    Was it?
    I don't know and it doesn't matter.
    What does matter is: honeybees, and all bees, are very valuable species. 
    

    As pollinators, they help fertilize plants, allowing food to grow. 

Every third bite of food you take, thank a bee or other pollinator.
-E.O. Wilson, Forgotten Pollinators, 1996

Related articles of scientific and factual value:

hereandnow.wbur.org/2016/05/11/honeybee-decline
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/bees.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder