Gilly McArthur found a bee with a broken wing lying by the side of a road and brought it home, making it a bed of flowers. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
McArthur says she couldn't leave the bee on the roadside. She expected it to die within a day, but instead the bee went viral. When McArthur was due to go on a sailing trip for a week, she took the bee with her and posted about it on Instagram.
The next morning, she woke to messages from around the world. People shared their own stories of rescuing bees and butterflies. McArthur is touched but slightly baffled by the furore. She thinks it might be because the world is in such a polycrisis, and everyone is wanting to pull back to something authentic and kind.
Britain has 24 species of bumblebee and more than 240 species of solitary bee. Most bumblebees live for just one year. Phoebee has not mated, but McArthur is hopeful.
McArthur enjoys watching the bee: "She's fascinating: she spends a lot of time cleaning herself like a cat. And I could watch her putting her long tongue out and getting the nectar out of the flowers for hours."
Andy Benson of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust has watched the brouhaha with bemusement. He advises not to take bees home but to gently place them on a flower and let nature take its course. Benson notes that a third of British wild bees and hoverflies are in decline, and a quarter of European species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, climate change, and pesticides.
Benson says if people want to help bees, they don't have to take them into their home; simply planting a few flowers in their garden can help. McArthur acknowledges she hasn't stopped the decline in bee numbers, but hopes her story will encourage people to look at the smaller things with more curiosity.