It was one of the first warm days this month, mostly sunny with a light breeze and a few high clouds. The temperature at our house probably didn’t go beyond the upper 50s, but given that it had been somewhere around zero less than a week earlier, it felt like spring had sprung. The snow, in all its dirty, sharp, jagged glory, was still melting in the shady corners of the yard, and what remained of the grass was a thin brown layer over a slippery morass of mud. Just the tips of the crocuses, daffodils and hyacinths in the flower beds poked above the dirt and detritus in the flowerbeds, promising blossoms to come. So when Teresa and I decided to spend some time basking in the sun, we kept mostly to the small patio, blowing bubbles and drawing on the concrete with sidewalk chalk. It was almost idyllic, really, drawing and looking up to greet passers-by, who smiled and waved, with nearly everyone in a sunny mood to match the weather. “BUG!!” Teresa screamed, interrupting my springtime daydreaming. “BUG!! BUG!!” She tried to jump up and down and cling to my legs and hide behind me all at the same time, while I looked around trying to figure out what caused the outburst. I saw the shadow first, a slow-moving dark thumbprint shape, making its way across the patio. It came to rest on the dormant air conditioner, allowing me to note the tawny and brown fuzzy stripes. An ambitious and early honeybee, then. “It’s a bee,” I said, forgetting that to Teresa, the news that this insect could sting would be far from comforting. I’ve tried many times to explain that while honeybees can and do sting to defend themselves, they really aren’t interested in confrontation, and will happily leave people alone if they are left to their own devices. Failing to get any coherent response from Teresa, I picked her up and took her inside, coming back out to retrieve the chalk and bubbles. The bee, seemingly exhausted by her journey to our patio, remained where she rested, soaking up the warmth of the sun just as we had been doing. I mentally wished the bee well as I retreated into the house as well, hoping that the advent of the insects would not keep Teresa from wanting to come outside as the weather improved. She did make a point of telling the rest of the family about the bee when they came home — getting responses that generally reinforced the idea that we have to share the world with insects and the best plan is to calm down and deal with it — and, the next day, she was willing to venture into the backyard again, albeit with a certain careful reconnaissance before relaxing. Here’s hoping that as spring and summer unfold, the beauty of the flowers wraps itself around the buzzing of the bees in her mind, and she comes to understand that you can’t have one without the other, and that the presence of stings and thorns and other prickly things does not take away from the glory of God’s creation.