Mowing bees

Yesterday I had to mow our lawn. My husband, who originates from the United Kingdom always wants to achieve the perfect english lawn. You know - like in Hyde Park. Or the Wembley stadion. But he is working out of town coming home only now and then, which leaves the mowing mostly in my incapable hands. As long as I am the one mowing his chance on achieving the perfect lawn is exactly zilch. It's not that I have anything against short and evenly cut grass. But I seldom have the time to spend a whole morning or afternoon on cutting grass and that is what it would take at least. More so - we have weeds, quite a proud collection of weeds actually. You name the weed - we have it. And gardening being usually rather on the bottom of my to-do-list, the weeds are positively thriving. Right now clover is in full bloom. When you look over our back garden, the whole place is covered under a tight web of flowering white clover. There is so much of it, that walking through the back, you can smell the clover everywhere. And that says something, because if you take a single clover flower and hold it to your nose, I'd say it doesn't smell much of anything. But sheer number does it. You can smell the clover then.

So, back to beginning. I was mowing the lawn. The clover-infested lawn. When you stand really quiet for a moment and concentrate you can even hear the humming. Because of cause clover seems to be some kind of pollen-delicatessen for bees. So there are bees. Lots of them all over the clover and me mowing. Of course what happens is this. A bee is sitting on a clover flower having its way with it, doing the age-old deed of bees and flowers when suddenly a big red dirty stinking lawn mower appears and goes right over them. The sharp rotating knife is powered by a Briggs&Stratton engine and whirl relentlessly over the happy couple of coupling bee and clover. (I don't mean to mow bees, but there is no way around it.) BUT: When the lawn mower moves on the bee is nowhere to be seen.



Of course my first thought was that probably the bee gets sucked into the basket of the lawn mower together with all the cuttings. But I empty this basket again and again and have been doing this for some time now. Not once in all this time have I ever seen a bee in the cuttings. Of course it is possible that I miss them - they are not exactly fire engine red. But never in all these years have a seen a bee. I often take the cuttings out with my bare hands, I've never been stung. This mystified me enough to look rather closely at the cuttings - still no bees. Where are the bees gone? Do they make a last-minute escape despite their pollen-induced pleasure? Are they completely intoxicated by the pollen and fall deep into the cut grass? Do they get all dizzy by the whirling knife and remain unconscious hidden in the cuttings? Have they hatched an escape route from the lawn mower? To bee or not to bee - I am determined to get to the bottom of this mystery!