Yes, it's true friends. Don't laugh, but this morning I performed entomological surgery! It started this way. I was gardening outside on this lovely summer morning, when I heard a very loud and persistent buzzing. Searching for the location of the sound, I found it was coming from a carpenter bee that had been merrily minding its own business whilst pollinating the sweet peas climbing along my fence. I watched as the poor critter became entangled in a spider's web and was spinning in circles wrapping itself ever tighter in the web's embrace. Always rooting for the underdog, I couldn't help feeling pity for the bee, even though a small army of his kin are now eating my home's wooden porch. So I ran inside and found a container, then captured the carpenter bee and quickly put it in the freezer, mind you, just to calm him down. Insects are relatively impervious to the cold...once I put a long-horned beetle in the freezer for a week, but when I took him out to make a sketch, he woke up and promptly trotted off the kitchen table while I was looking down at my drawing paper! Needless to say, that illustration was never finished. Anyway, back to the bee. After about five minutes, I removed the now 'sleeping' bee and took him to my studio, placed him under my magnifying light that I use for drawing small specimens. Using two forceps, I carefully pulled the spider's web off from around his abdomen and head. The legs were the most difficult, since the web is surprisingly strong, I would have inadvertantly pulled the bee's legs off if I hadn't steadied each leg with a forcep while I used the other forcep to pull the resistant webbing. I worked quickly, just fast enough it turned out, for just as I was pulling off the last bit from over his eyes, he began to wake up and vibrate his wings to warm up. I placed him in the sun in the backyard and .....ta da....after a couple minutes he returned to full consciousness and flew off. Wow, I bet he had a tall tale to tell back at the nest!
