Bumblebee Revery (2017)

Listen

Bumblebee Reverie

Bee, I’m expecting you
As the tiniest of flora join our spring, yearning.
Singing a soft melody, yearning.
Bee, I’m expecting you.

Fat with fuzz
dusty with pollen
She begins her life’s work
to answer nature’s calling.

Bumbling and tumbling,
Stumbling to each flower,
Humbled by the wind,
And the chance of rain shower.

Tiny wings buzz as she dances
Tiny wings dance with the breeze
Turning circles to the sky

The hive rumbles in the distance
singing a soft melody.
Tiny wings fly, algorithmically
Tiny wings fly, threatened.

Shaya Wolf

Program Note

Bumblebee Revery is the representation of the early work that I did during my internship with Dr. Michael Dillon at the University of Wyoming in 2016-17. I met Michael at the Wyoming Festival in 2016 and, inspired by my undergraduate composition professor Dr. Anne Guzzo, I hoped to complete an interdisciplinary project that combined entomology and music into one cohesive work.

The first step of this process was learning how to work with hives in the lab, which was a daunting task because my childhood trained me to be terrified of the tiny creatures. Knowing that my mom is deathly allergic to bees and seeing my brother’s foot swell up to look like a soccer ball after stepping on a wasp fed my imagination growing up, painting bees as tiny, aggressive, efficient predators. Of course, it’s difficult to know if you’re allergic until you get stung, but I never took my chances, sometimes to the point that I would refuse to go outside if I saw the dreaded yellow and black pattern floating around the playground. Most sane people would feel uncomfortable opening a box of bumblebees, but there I was, doing it for fun, armed with the new knowledge that everyone has similar likelihood of being allergic to their stings, and the horrifying fact that even if you’ve been stung before with no reaction, you could always have an allergic reaction next time!

Throughout the internship, with the help of the passionate students in Michael’s lab, I began to get more comfortable with the bees. We would go out to catch them, and my lab-mates taught me how they behave, how to handle them safely, and shared their love of the bees with me. I learned that male insects lack the ability to sting you, making them harmless, and I learned that one species of bumblebees is lovingly referred to as “cheeto-butt bees.” I learned a bit about how to tell the males from the females, which is a skill that I’m still not particularly good at. By the end, I had no problem feeding the hives, and enjoyed recording and catching bumblebees in the field.

– Shawna M. Wolf