Don't worry - bee happy

Red-tailed bumblebee on St John's Wort, a wild plant that has long been credited with a variety of medicinal applications including as an anti-depressant. In trials it has been found to work 'better than placebo' in cases of mild to moderate depression. It's also toxic and can cause poisoning in grazing animals.

The red-tailed bumble bee is one of several species of bumble. This one is male  since it has a yellow ruff. 

Gilbert White* the 18thC. English country parson who is credited with being the first ecologist, recording in his diaries and letters the natural history and seasonal events of his Hampshire parish, described in a letter in 1775. 

"WE had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot-boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, shewed a strong propensity to bees; they were his food, his amusement, his sole object. And as people of this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dosed away his time, within his father's house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney-corner; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny banks. Honey-bees, humble-bees, and wasps, were his prey wherever he found them: he had no apprehensions from their stings, but would seize them  and at once disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin with a number of these captives; and sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was ... very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. "


Today this young man would surely be classed as neuro-diverse and, one hopes,  his extraordinary obsession might be channelled into bee-keeping and honey-production. His quasi-depressive state during the winter months (seasonal affective disorder?) might be treated with anti-depressant medication - or possibly St John's Wort!


I wonder what Melisseus thinks?

* Recent news is that agricultural land in Gilbert White's patch is being restored to a more natural and traditional style of farming to reinstate the wildlife diversity he knew.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/27/gilbert-white-pioneering-naturalist-rude-magnificence-restored-aoe