Last Saturday afternoon was warm, still, and sunny. A rare thing around here. We suited up, opened the hive for a quick look, and Bee Girl quietly asked if she could borrow my phone.
She does not often ask for it. Usually I am the one pressing buttons and she is the one tending to the bees with her hive tool. But this time she had a plan. She wanted to lie down on the gravel beside the apiary and photograph our girls up close.
What she came back with took my breath away.
These are her photographs. All of them. No filters, no edits, no cropping. Just her, eleven years old, lying flat on the ground, waiting for a bee to hold still, and pressing the button at exactly the right moment.
We thought you might like to see our colony the way she sees them.
The first one she caught through the lens. Perched on the edge of the crown board, late afternoon sun behind her. Bee Girl lay flat on the gravel and did not move until the bee did.
[Photo 6 goes here, 06_bee_from_above.jpg]
Inside the hive. This is what our bees see every second of every day. The comb, the propolis-stained wood, each other. Bee Girl’s favourite of the set, because it makes her feel like she was in there with them, not outside looking in.
Bee Girl is not a professional photographer. She is a year six beekeeper with a borrowed phone and a lot of patience.
She has asked me to say that if any other kids are reading this, all it takes is being quiet, getting low to the ground, and waiting. The bees are not going to hurt you, they are far too busy being bees.
We will bring you more of her photographs as the season goes on.
Mum x
More from Bee Girl: how I light my smoker and the case of the missing reducer.