My model died

This is a weird story. It started all sweet and easy and then went south real quickly. Especially for my model.

There was a dragonfly flying around in my yard, to lure him in I put some sweet stuff on a table. So far, so good. I wasn't expecting anything to happen any time soon, so I stepped back into my office. Then I noticed the bee, indoors, on the windowsill.

Bees look lovely in their yellow and black fur coat, it is just too bad they can not be petted. It was flying against the window to get outside. Which obviously didn't work. I wanted to take a picture before setting him free. To get a good shot I thought it might help to spray some water on him.

The idea was, first, to keep him more or less in one spot, while waiting for his wings to dry, second, to hopefully get some nice sparkles from the waterdrops.

None of these things happened.
I turned around to get my camera and the foolish insect dropped off the windowsill, right into a spider's web.

I live in a very old house, we are used to having cobwebs here and there.

The spider noticed roomservice had arrived and started climbing towards the bee.
'Sorry buddy, that is my model, you can't have him.'
I could stop the spider just in time, and save the bee.

Still wanted to take that picture, but had to wait for the bee to recover. I put him gently in a big jar. Just to keep him safe, giving him some time to dry. Sounds good, right?

Wrong! This jar was still wet at the bottom. The poor bee was even more soaked than before. I removed the water, put the bee on his feet, and waited.

It didn't look good, but I am no bee expert. Should I smash his head to end his misery or should I wait. I waited, and miracle of miracles, after looking almost dead he started climbing up the piece of bark I also put in the jar. Phew, saved a life again. I was able to take the first image of this post.

He climbed, fell off, climbed up again, that is when I shot the next image. You could say he is not in the best mood.

After a while he even started flying again. By that time I decided to set him free. To give him some room to do things at his own pace, I put the jar outside on its side on the table, next to the sweet stuff.

It seemed a great idea, he could crawl out, eat something to gain his strength. A world saved!

Unfortunately when I checked the jar this morning, the bee was still near it. Dead :( Not sure what happened.

And for the record, the dragonfly never touched the sweet stuff I had put on the table to lure him in.

Maybe I should stick to landscapephotography, there is way too much drama in macrophotography.

Camera

First Image

Second Image