Cranky Bee Speaks!

Cranky Bee Here!

Go away! I am a cranky bee today.

Oh wait, that’s not very nice, is it? Christelinda asked me to write a blog post about myself and how I got started, and anything else that I want to talk about.

I was going to say no because I’m in a bad mood today. But since she’s the brains behind this operation and to state the obvious, she knows how to use the eraser, I decided I better say yes.

Where shall I start?

First things first, I’m a bee – specifically, a honeybee. Hurray for honeybees!

I was born a long time ago but I don’t know the exact date. I know that it was very hot, too sunny and waaay too loud. Hopping honeycombs, the noise‼ There was the sound of all of my aunts and uncles and siblings buzzing around. There was the wind rushing through the hive. And did I mention all of that buzzing! Don’t get me started on the smells. It was enough to make me want to crawl back into my cell and sleep. But, there was work to do.

I spend my days hopping from flower to flower, collecting nectar. While I’m doing that, I’m grumbling. When I’m not in the garden, I’m in the hive, complaining. In my free time, I grouch about things. See the theme here? I don’t know why I’m perpetually grouchy, but it grumps me out. My siblings are annoyingly happy and cheerful. Look at them, zooming around in loops! Makes me dizzy. When people think of bees, bumblebees or honeybees, most of them think about bees like my siblings. Ugh!

When we started this blog, my human made the mistake of googling “bee cartoon” for inspiration. Yes, she already knew how to draw a bee – she just wanted some ideas. We were swamped by happy bees! Cheerful bees, cutesy bees, adorable bees, giggly bees, baby bees (with pacifiers?!) and the list of happy synonyms goes on. Most of them were too sweet for my taste. And what’s with the bugging out eyeballs in some illustrations? Not one had a cranky bee. And that made me feel left out.

We refined our search to look for “cranky bees” and that led to pictures of angry, muscley insects, most of them looking more like wasps. All of them had their butts prominently displayed, stingers waggling. I’ll just say one thing – bees don’t have biceps. Maybe some of us like to think we do, but we don’t.

Still inspired and undeterred by the search results, my human rolled up her sleeves and booted her favourite vector editing software with her characteristic enthusiasm. I wasn’t smiling when she was working on me, so she was stuck with my frowny pose. Yet, she plowed on with energy and zeal. Some of her early drawings of me looked Awful with a capital A. She won’t admit it, but I will.

In this early draft, I looked kind of like a bloated fish! She tried to add legs, but that made it worse. It was so bad, she stopped at 4 legs instead of 6. I won’t include the other drafts of me at this early stage, for decency’s sake.

Yup, that’s me – a blimp with legs.

Christelinda went back to the drawing board and made some edits. My yellow and black suit and my shape looks a lot better.

What happened to my graceful antennae?

Finally, she settled on a smaller, more oval-y shape with two simple wings. My legs made me look like a dog-bee, so she ditched them altogether. And, she added my stylish antennae – thank you for that.

Ahh, that’s much better. Here I am, in the flesh!

Some Things You Might BEE Wondering

You might be wondering some things about me. Like, if I’m such a grump, how can I stand being around someone like Christelinda? She’s almost always smiling or laughing. She’s constantly tapping her fingers to music inside her head, which plays 24/7. That tapping is so annoying! At least when she’s at the piano, I can actually hear the music that’s going on in there.

In short, I don’t mind being in close proximity to a happy human like Christelinda because of the way she is. Some of the very characteristics that make her so annoying also make her fun to hang out with. Every day is a new adventure. She gives every project 100% enthusiasm, even if it doesn’t work out (they often don’t). And she gets this big, goofy grin on her face whenever she comes up with one of her new “brilliant” ideas. After all, I was one of them.

We balance each other out. She reminds me to look on the bright side once in a while, and to unapologetically be my cranky, quirky self. And I increase her stress level just enough to keep her on her toes.

So, now you know a bit more about me, and some more about this unconventional bee/human partnership. You learned a bit about my story and saw some embarrassing photos from my development.

And you know what? I actually kind of like this blogging stuff. Maybe I’ll ask Christelinda to let me do another one later. Maybe a FAQ, or something. What do you think? Let me know in the comments (and no cutesy bee photos, please).

Go away now. And please leave quietly. I’m going to take a nap.

~Cranky Bee

P.S. If you’d like to see some cards featuring ME, Cranky Bee, and my family they’re all in the Bee Cards gallery!