Colour tattoo of a bumblebee inside a wreath of purple flowers and green leaves on the outer thigh.

Bumblebee in a floral wreath on a thigh

Botanical · Thigh · Colour · Photo

A bumblebee with shaded yellow and black striping and translucent grey wings sits at the centre of a circular wreath. The wreath is made of purple five-petalled flowers, small buds and green leaves with dark outlines. The linework is bold and the bee is shaded with soft gradients, set against bare skin on the outer thigh.

Botanical Traditional Thigh Bee Wreath Flower Leaves Bud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bee has got into the chapel again, and you are the one who has to catch it. Brother Anselm says the Lord made nothing idle, so a bumblebee bumping against the north transept window is a matter for you. You cup your hands and wait while it throws itself at the glass, heavy and furred, its striped body seeming too large for the light it keeps trying to climb towards.

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The walled garden is going to seed. The herb beds have bolted, and the purple flowers you have been weeding around since Lent have bruised with August rain. Anselm waits at the gate with his sleeves rolled. He says the bees must be given their due before the candles are poured. You carry the bee across the cloister, past the lavender and the old dog asleep on the flagstones, and feel it settle on your knuckle, warm as bread.

Every evening Anselm counts the hives on his fingers the way other men tell beads. Twelve skeps stand along the south wall, each a straw bell with a sleeper inside. He tells you the bees go out to the limes and the clover and come home heavy-legged with gold, and that their wax will burn in the choir for a hundred years if the community keeps faith with them. You do not believe him about the hundred years. You believe him about the weight of the bee in your palm, which is more than you expected.

At the nearest skep you tip your hand towards the dark mouth. The bee walks off your knuckle, pauses, then climbs inside as though it had only stepped out to check the weather. Anselm nods once and makes a small mark on the slate by the door. Eleven hundred and four, he says, and you understand that he has been keeping a tally of every bee that ever came home, and that you are now part of the count.