What was the old aphorism about the "road to hell being paved with good intentions"? Or maybe, "no good deed goes unpunished?"Each year, as the lilacs and peonies bloom, ProfessorRoush tries to brighten up the desk staff and waiting room by occasionally bringing in fragrant flowers (of appropriate purple, cream, or lilac colorings since those are the school colors). This morning, I gathered a bouquet of lilacs, light 'Annabelle', and darker 'Patriot' and 'Sensation', unceremoniously stuck them in a Mason jar, and drove them into school to place them in the waiting room.
I often wonder if the practice will have to end when a client will finally complains about the strong fragrance offending them or setting off their allergies (what a world we live in now!), but if that occasion ever occurs, the flowers can be easily moved. What I never dreamed of is finding, as I did several hours later, that they would attract bumblebees into the building. I suppose it is possible that this little guy could have been hidden within a blossom as I collected them, torpid from the cold night air. Surely, however, the warmer air of the Jeep would have awoken him as we drove. An alternative, but hardly more likely hypothesis is that somehow this bumblebee followed the fragrance and found these flowers through double doors about 30 feet away from the outside.If his presence had been widely noted, I'm sure it would have called for much clamor and strife, but luckily he seemed satisfied to perch on the same spot for awhile and then disappeared about ten minutes later, never to be seen again. I do hope he found his way back out through the double doors and stocked his larder up from the trip so he doesn't return later.
