Author Gary Taylor ◦
I nearly didn’t write this one on… Sweet little Hylaeus violaceus lickin’ honey off my finger… Now before anyone brings up that you shouldn’t really give native bees feral honey, let me explain the other option… Death by spider.
She was trapped inside panicking when I came in to have a coffee, too high up to reach easily, and then she got her legs caught in a web… A big daddy long legs came charging towards her, she saw it coming, her little wings flying like hell but she wasn’t going anywhere. She panicked even more and just managed to free herself before the monster was upon her… Things weren’t looking good for the little girl, I remembered the Lasioglossums landing on my finger while I was eating toast and honey in the garden the other day… it just might work… I flipped the lid on the squeazy bottle, dabbed a finger against the middle bit and, standing on a chair, reached my finger up as high as I could… It worked! She landed on my finger, long enough to get her out of danger and escape into the sunlight outside… and then go back in, get my camera, come back outside into the sunlight again and take a pic 😄
And as for the tiny dab of honey on my finger, I’d just spent the last few hours mixing cement and dirt in different ratios and pushing it into brick holes with my hands to come up with the perfect Amegilla mud… I’m more worried she’s going to get kidney stones than some rare pathogen 😅
