Inspired by a real bumblebee rescue, Sweet Offering reflects layers of giving: sugar water that helped a struggling bee recover, a blue aster offering nectar, and the painting as a tribute to the memory.
On an unusually warm April afternoon, my sister-in-law and I were heading out for a walk. We had just started down the driveway when something on the pavement caught my eye.
It was a bumblebee. At first glance, the bee looked lifeless. It wasn’t moving, and I almost continued walking. But something made me go back and crouch down beside it. When I gently touched it, the bee moved a tiny bit. It was alive.
gently lifted it from the pavement and placed it on a leaf of a nearby bush. It clung to the edge of the leaf and dangled there as the breeze moved it back and forth. It clearly wasn’t ready to fly.
My sister-in-law said she had noticed the bee the day before and hadn’t realized it was still alive. Somehow, this little bee had survived there all that time.
We couldn’t leave it like that. We went back in the house and made some sugar water. We put a little of it in a tablespoon and placed it on the grass in a shady spot under a tree in the backyard. We placed the bee at the edge of the spoon.
Then something happened that neither of us expected. The little bee reached its front legs toward the spoon, inched forward, then lowered its mouth to the sugar water and began to drink. We were thrilled.
We watched for a few minutes, and then left it there with the spoon so it could drink as much as it needed and headed out for our walk. About an hour later, when we returned, the bee was gone.
We searched through the nearby grass, wondering if it had crawled somewhere. Then we looked online and discovered that a cold or exhausted bee can sometimes recover surprisingly quickly after getting the energy it needs. Apparently, our little visitor hadn’t needed an hour.
If we had stayed another ten or fifteen minutes, we likely would have been lucky enough to watch it take flight. But knowing that it had was enough to fill us with delight.
Our hearts were lifted. There was something unexpectedly joyful about realizing that such a small act had helped such a tiny creature continue on its way.
As I painted this bumblebee, I felt connected again to the little life we had helped save. I feel warmth in my heart when I think about the unexpected joy it brought us that afternoon.
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