I've been watering out in the back yard today. and have found honeybees galore. It was 100 degrees yesterday, and the bees were out in force. The white sage was indeed a "blooming, buzzing chaos," as William James says. The bumble bees, sweat bees, and honey bees were stumbling over one another to get to the multitude of flowers in our back yard. Currently in bloom: roses, grapefruit, lemon, pear, persimmon, two varieties of pomegranate, and white sage. Soon the rosemary and mint will be blooming as well as all the annuals.
I feel much relieved, but my concerns about the bee population are not entirely assuaged. As you can see from my previous post HERE colony collapse disorder is rampant in both Europe and North America for sure, and some scientists are very concerned about the future of bees. That means the future of humans. Bees pollinate many crops that would be prohibitively expensive, or even impossible, to pollinate by hand on a large scale. This means our food sources would be greatly diminished without bees to pollinate them for us.
I suggest you read up on colony collapse disorder. If you can find a place in your yard for flowers in the spring and summer, grow them. But most importantly, do not use pesticides that can harm bees. That would be most pesticides, but especially the neonicotinoids that have been implicated in colony collapse disorder. This is one small thing that you can do which would make a difference in your local neighborhood, and maybe a lot more than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment