With all my attention focused on bees of late, I thought I would tell my "bee story". I think I posted it a couple of years ago, but I can't find it. So here it is again. 

I had just finished my trek to the base camp of Mt. Everest and I was back in Kathmandu, Nepal sharing a room at the Hilton for a few days with a friend I made on the trek. One morning while having coffee, I met Robina Courtin, a well known Buddhist nun. She was in a sitting room at the hotel trying to get her laptop connected to the Internet; I was able to assist. A couple of days later she offered me a complimentary visit to hear her speak at a local monastery where she was teaching a group of students of all ages from all over the world. They were on a journey to trace the steps of Buddha. Nepal was their launching point. I accepted the invitation and spent three days at the Kopan Monastery with her group.

(Note: Robina developed the Chasing Buddha Pilgrimage, which lead pilgrimages to Buddhist holy sites in India, Nepal, and Tibet to raise money for the Liberation Prison Project.)

Upon checking in, all visitors must promise not to kill any living creature, and that includes any and all insects. It's up to individuals to look at the ground before sitting and make sure it's not already occupied by a bug. 

One early morning, I was by myself having banana pancakes and coffee when a bee began circling my plate.  She was quite insistent at wanting some food so I broke a tiny piece of my pancake off and offered it to her. She loved it. I'm guessing it was the syrup she loved the most. I then poured a tiny bit of coffee into a spoon (I had no water to share) and offered it to her thinking she surely had a mouthful of sticky to dissolve. To my surprise, the bee landed on the edge of the spoon and began to sip the coffee! How amazing, I thought. There I was having breakfast with a Nepali bee. I had banana pancakes with this bee two more times before I continued my travels. I think this was where my love for bees was born. (I discovered later that wasps, not bees, like human food, so my bee story was probably, in fact, a wasp story, but it will remain in my heart, the story of when I first fell in love with bees.)

From Wikipedia: Robina Courtin
(born Melbourne, Australia, 20
December 1944[1]), is a Buddhist
nun in the Tibetan Buddhist
Gelugpa tradition and lineage of
Lama Thubten Yesheand Lama
Zopa Rinpoche. In 1996 she
founded Liberation Prison Project,
which she ran until 2009.

It was about a month after staying at the Kopan Monastery and I was in Thamel, the town center of Kathmandu, Nepal.  I was at a cafe with a young Nepali boy of 13 who was living on the streets. I'd befriended him the second day after landing in the capital city. 

I was trying to get my teen friend enrolled in school and had arranged to meet with his mother that afternoon. I bought lunch for both of them while we waited for our interpreter who never came.  We three sat in awkward silence using nervous smiles, and some pointing and nodding to communicate. A few minutes later, I noticed a bee circling our table. It looked a lot like the one at the Kopan Monastery. 

The mother quickly shooed the bee away with a violent wave. This had the affect of firing up the bee to buzz more and fly toward the food all the more determined. Her son joined in and just as the bee was about to get a deadly smack by my young friend, I blurted out, "Nooo!"  I blocked the attack with my own hand and employing a rudimentary form of traveler's sign language, I got them to relax and watch. As the hungry warrior made another pass at our table, I gave her some crumbs. Both mother and son stopped and looked at me quite puzzled. As they calmed down, the bee calmed down, and soon got busy tasting my offering. Then the bee flew from my plate to the boy's and then to his mother's looking for more. 

My young friend joined in first. He broke off a piece from his sandwich and offered it to the bee. He placed it on the table and tapped like I had done. The bee readily settled in to eat. We all smiled at one another. The bee was most interested in what the mother was eating. Her fingers were sticky and the bee was hovering all over her. She sort of giggled and after watching her son feed the bee she offered some of her own crumbs. Toward the end of our meal, she even let the bee land on her sticky fingers!  
 It was one of those unexpected and memorable experiences that makes traveling so intoxicating. We were all breaking through the communication barrier with the help of this bee! (Or as I pointed out, it was probably a wasp, but I think my point is no less sweet.) 

For some wonderful bee photos click here.