Let's here it for the Bees!

...And every other pollinator doing their darndest, against the odds, to get round every tree and flower this season thus ensuring the survival of their kind and ours.
Small but mighty indeed.
​Today, just days away from the start of a British Bank Holiday weekend, when traditionally there should be threatening, ominous clouds gathering to rain on our parade, it has instead been 'sit and do nothing because it's so hot', wall-to-wall sunshine.
We're all slumped, melting in the shade. The birds have been the noisiest feature in the skies over my part of the English countryside for much of the day, week, past few months (Lockdown has been good for our local wildlife). Cawing, and twittering, and cuckooing, they've taken over. Or maybe I am noticing more because I am spending my time outside more just soaking up the calm after the storm of the last wonderful 3 crazy years of the existence of Queen Bee Coffee. It's the calm before the next storm of busy business. 
Amidst the strange and tragic times, I  have found my own personal silver lining - I have given myself an excuse to slow my pace, to truly appreciate my surroundings and those loved ones in them so much more.
I have tended to children and seeds, fed home-cooked meals and watered small plants, and am adoring seeing the rewards - not least because  hoping against hope that I wouldnt, I really thought I'd kill them ( the plants, not my girls!...).
I now have crazy yet happy feral children with awful lockdown locks (I haven't suddenly developed a talent for hairdressing), and flourishing meadow flowers all over, being visited by so many differen types of bees. A few I know the name of but with thousands of variations of bees, not to mention the flies that look like bees and the wasps that act like bees, it's all a bit of a minefield. But they are there, despite the odds being stacked against them, and I find it soothing to watch them buzzing around so diligently. How do they do it in this heat!  We've left little saucers of water out for them so they can have drink and a wash.
​Anyhoo, once the garden was just wild, now the structured (!???!! -ish) wildness of my garden has become a haven for bees and butterflies, and it's so touching to see the girls sit on their haunches, studying them, chasing them as the winged ones discard one flower for another.
I'll miss these tranquil moments when I'm back on the road, but I think this experience with the birds and the bees will have given me just what I needed: a timely reminder of who I am doing this for and how little acts of kindness (and pollinating) really can and do make an impact.
Much love and stay safe,
​Queenie

---