The strong fragrance reminded her of her grandmother. The garden overflowed with lavender bushes, their purple flowers surrounded by bees. They moved lithely from one flower head to another, foraging the nectar efficiently to take back to their hives. Nettie had read somewhere that the long-tongued bumble bees preferred lavender flowers to the short-tongued honey bees. The long tubes of the lavender flowers made them less attractive to the honey bees who had to stick their whole head inside the tube in order to extract the nectar. This resulted in unnecessary delays to their nectar gathering process so they preferred other types of flowers.

Lavender was her grandmother’s favourite flower. Nettie hated lavender nearly as much as she hated bees.

Continue reading at Roberta Writes