Mixing the Icons.

I saw something about a week ago that I’ve never seen before. The weather was dry and sunny, but cold, and there were two bees feeding – or attempting to feed – on the snowdrops.

Snowdrops are the iconic winter wild flower in Britain. As far as I know, they’re the only winter wild flower; they’re certainly the only prolific one, deriving their common name from the fact that they’re often seen blooming above the snow. Bees, on the other hand, are an icon of high summer. Yet there they both were in strange, incongruous harmony, seeming to have become a dual icon of the unseasonal seasons we seem to be having so much these days.

And it was a little sad to realise that the bees would probably have very short lives, since the nights were frosty at the time. I also wondered whether snowdrops even produce nectar. Do they? I don’t know.