busy as a..

This bumblebee paid a visit to my studio today. It's the largest bee I've ever seen; larger than some hummingbirds and fatter than my thumb! I looked it up in one of my books and learned that "dumbledore" or "dumbledory" was an Old English term for bumblebee, along with drummel, hummel or humble bee. Tolkien uses the word in his poem "Errantry," which contains many other lovely words as well.

"He battled with the Dumbledores,
the Hummerhorns, and Honeybees,
and won the Golden Honeycomb;
and running home on sunny seas
in ship of leaves and gossamer
with blossom for a canopy,
he sat and sang, and furbished up
and burnished up his panoply."

The ladybugs are still visiting at night, along with some other little beetles that look like stained glass when the light shines through them.