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The Wukoki Bee

By Julie Penman Livesey

It was more than seventeen years ago. I was traveling around Northern Arizona with a friend, and this particular day had found us wandering around the Wupatki National Monument–a large area of desert northeast of Flagstaff–where remnants of ancient pueblo settlements belonging to the Anasazi and Sinagua Indians had been preserved.

Early October, the temperature was in the comfortable upper seventies, allowing two sun-deprived Brits a rare chance to develop a pretty decent tan while moseying around the various ruins.

The impressive three-story Wupatki Pueblo, having once been large enough to house as many as three hundred people, sat majestically on the edge of a small plateau overlooking unobstructed views of the Painted Desert to the east. We spent an enjoyable hour there before jumping back into our hired car and heading off to what we soon found to be the most striking of all the sites open to the public–the Wukoki Pueblo. Built onto an isolated block of sandstone, it loomed out of the distance like a miniature Ayers Rock. There was absolutely no other structure of any significance as far as the eye could see, natural or man-made–just miles and miles of arid scrub-covered desert.

As we stepped out of the car and began to approach the ruin, the deep red of the Pueblo’s brickwork and the surrounding sand and rock that had produced it struck a huge contrast with the dusty green of the dry and prickly scrub growing out of the sun-baked ground. The only sound to be heard was the gentle rustling of a light breeze through the brush and the crunch of our hiking boots on the dusty path. We were truly in the middle of nowhere.

We left each other to our own thoughts as we rambled around the site, taking photographs at every turn. Though we were the only people there we felt no sense of unease at the isolation of the place and soon split up. There was an abundance of specially created paths around the pueblo for the tourist to follow, but I soon found myself wandering off the designated path in order to get the perfect picture.

I weaved through the scrub, stopping intermittently to look through the camera lens, before moving on to the next spot, and the next. I could sometimes hear the distant scrunch of my friend’s footfalls as she meandered amongst the ruins, but I felt in no particular hurry to rejoin her.

I don’t know what made me turn around. One moment I was crouching down and aiming my lens at the tower which appeared to grow seamlessly out of the rock before me. The next, I was standing with my back to it and staring down at the ground a few feet ahead of me. A little bee (of the fluffiest bumble variety) was running across my path as fast as his tiny legs could carry him. I barely had time to register the fact that he wasn’t flying when I spotted a small lizard in close pursuit. Instinctively, I took a step forward, and to my utter amazement, the bee immediately made a swift and perfect 90 degree turn in my direction. The lizard, sensing my presence, hesitated, continued the chase, then hesitated again, not sure of what to do.

I decided not to take any chances. I picked up a long thin twig, one of a multitude scattered around me, and touched one end of it to the ground. The bee ran straight for it. I watched in awe as the little bee wrapped his front legs around the twig–then hung on for dear life, as I hoisted him high into the air before gently plopping him down onto a nearby flowering bush. The lizard, thwarted, made a hasty retreat under a rock.

Bending over to inspect my new friend, I could see no obvious sign of injury, but did notice that he seemed to be carrying half his bodyweight in pollen. Was this the reason he hadn’t simply flown away from his pursuer? Had he been just too darn heavy? I guess I will never know.

I left him there on the bush to rest, hopeful that he would make it back to his hive safely, and as I walked away, I couldn’t help but marvel at what had just happened. This tiny creature had literally put his trust, and his life, in my hands. What strategic genius, what courage under the worst of pressure it had taken to hope that his best chance of escape from the clutches of a giant monster was to hurtle himself toward an infinitely larger one.