So Tiny Yet So Big: Mother Nature's Bees

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             My grandmother used to tell us that, long, long years ago when she was young, country roads in the spring and summer were a mind-boggling display of color. The pinks, purples, oranges, and yellows of every wildflower species flooded the edges of every trail, and the air was warm with their perfume.

                It must have been wonderful.

                By the time I was around, it was a rare and lucky find to happen across a lily or two. Now, on the roadside, you’ll mostly see weeds, gravel and dirt. Grandma was chagrined to find that many of her grandchildren had never even seen many of the flowers that she used to count by the hundreds!

                The culprit? The cause of this mass and relatively rapid loss of flora?

                Spraying, said Grandma. It was the result of tons of chemicals spread around the countryside in a bid to control crop pests and protect power poles from wandering branches. The flowers, and anything that relied upon the flowers, were simply collateral damage, in the minds of those with the spray power. She spent a good portion of her life rallying against the dreaded sprays. In her later years, she harbored hope that someone had listened and had pulled back on the chemical spraying a bit, and maybe we’d see the flowers again.

                I wish she had been right. Sadly, the spraying continues in profusion. And it’s no longer just the flowers that are fading away.

The bee population is in rapid decline. All over the world, people are reporting serious drops in beehive activity and alarming numbers of the little creatures turning up not-so-alive.

Click here to read the story.

                The culprit, once again, is spraying. Tons of chemicals are dumped all over us every season, whether we know it or not. These are to destroy or ward off crop-damaging creatures or eradicate mosquito larvae before they can hatch and whatever else some authority figure may deem necessary.

                And in the process, they’re knocking off our bees by the ton.

                As kids, we’re kind of taught to run, screaming, from any sight of the little black and yellow insects buzzing about, for fear they give us a dreaded sting. What we’re not taught is that there is a very, very good reason that they’re here. They serve a key purpose in the environment.

                Besides being suppliers of sweet, sticky, delicious honey, bees are responsible for a huge portion of the food on our plates. Without their tireless, endless pollination activities, we would no longer have such fruits and veggies as cantaloupes, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, apples, cherries, oranges, peaches, and kiwifruit. Our meat, dairy and eggs would disappear as there’d be no grass and grains for our livestock to munch.

                Here’s another one to think about. Even our wardrobes would alter without the bee! Cotton is, after all, a plant which requires – guess what? – pollination!

Click here to learn about what bees do.

                Yet, for the mighty role these bitty creatures play in Mother Nature’s scheme, still, here we are, killing them off in droves. More than that, some studies are showing that death is only the last in a list of symptoms these creatures must endure. Scientists are discovering that bees afflicted by these chemical sprays quickly lose their ability to find and retrieve food. The more spray they’re exposed to, the more they struggle.

                There’s been more than one study on the phenomenon, and governments are working hard at reaching a solution while many pesticide companies are arguing that their own studies show bee decline has nothing to do with their products. Still others are suggesting that, while pesticides are a problem, they may be only one of many factors causing the bee’s problems.

                Meanwhile, as the endless studies go on and on, would it be so bad to cut back on the chemicals a little bit?

Here’s the good news. Someone is willing to do something about it. Recently, at least one gardening store has publicly agreed to stop selling insecticides known to be the most hazardous, along with any other products affected by them. They’re also going to put an effort into educating their customers on the different products available.

Click here to read the story.

It’s real good to know we’re on the right track. If more companies head that way, then who knows? Maybe one day Grandma’s dream will come true and the roadsides will be alive with wildflowers again.

And they’ll be vibrating and buzzing.

Photo by Lisa Derksen