Small black and grey fine line tattoo of a bee with detailed wings, on the inner upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small bee tattoo on upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A small bee is tattooed on the inner upper arm, shown from above with its wings spread and its body banded in black and grey. The linework is fine and shading is used on the abdomen and wings to give depth. The background is a plain pale wall, and the tattoo is the clear focal point of the photograph.

Fine line Upper arm Bee Insect

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth, the hives are wrapped now, black tar paper and two bricks on each lid, the way your father always did it, though I doubt the bees care whether we've made them a coat. Mrs Pargeter came up the lane on Tuesday with a jar of her honey and a face like a funeral. Her colony died in the cold snap, every last one of them clustered tight and never waking. She asked me whether I'd heard any humming in the wall of the old hive house, and I said no, because I hadn't, and she looked so relieved I nearly told her about the one that found its way into the kitchen last week and sat on the windowsill all afternoon.

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It was the big bumble, the fat striped sort with the dusty yellow fur, and it was furious with the glass. I didn't have the heart to swat it. I put a saucer of sugar water by the sill and went out to fetch coal, and when I came back it had gone quiet and was walking slow in little circles, so I carried it out on a spoon and set it down in the lee of the woodshed where the sun gets in at noon. It stayed there so long I thought it was dead. Then it lifted, went up over the yard wall, and I lost it over the orchard.

The thing I keep thinking about is how the old men used to say you must tell the bees when someone dies, or they'll leave the hive. I've been practising the words on the hens, which is how I know I'm getting peculiar. Come at Easter if the roads allow. There's a spare room with a view of the hive house and I'll wake you early so you can listen for the hum. Bring the good wool socks, the ones you knitted before you went off to the city. My feet have never been warm since.

All my love, Margaret