Bee Resuscitaion

Last Saturday, I found two bumble bees lying on the ground, victims of the cold morning.  They looked pretty feeble, but I didn't want to just leave them there.  Both showed some signs of reaction when I moved my hand towards them (raising a defensive leg as they do).  I had heard that you can resuscitate bees by giving them sugary water, so I thought there was nothing to lose.

I mixed half a teaspoon of sugar in a few drops of warm water (from the kettle) in a jamjar lid, then place a piece of kitchen towel in the lid to soak up the mixture.  I then carefully picked up the bees and placed them on the kitchen towel, and to my surprise, they started licking the moisture from the paper (I thought they would suck - shows what I know).  After about 5 minutes, the more lively looking of the two started buzzing (I believe they do that to warm up - like we would shiver).  Then a couple of minutes later, it flew off.  The second bee was a few more minutes, but it too flew off eventually.

By the time I got my camera out, the first bee had gone, but the photos below show the second bee a couple of minutes before it left.  If you look carefully, at the second photograph, you can see its pink tongue (I had never seen a bee's tongue before). 

Now, I'm not sure if it was the slightly warmer surroundings of our summerhouse, the sugary water or both that helped them, but we had two seemingly recovered bees take to the air and fly off.