Dear Editor:
So there I am cutting the grass last week with my just-sharpened push reel mower, when it hits me. Where are the honey bees? At this time of year, the clover and buttercups should be teeming with Apis mellifera.
One of the many advantages of using a push mower is you get a good look at the grass. Removing the small stones and bits of wood — which can jam the blades, but are nuked with a gas mower - involves frequent close-up inspections. Not a honey bee so far, and no bumble bees either. My yard can't be the exception because I deliberately include bee-attracting, B.C. native wild flowers along with mono culture grass seed.
Bee colony collapse, just a few years ago, was treated by the scientific community as an impending disaster, in keeping with species extinction the world over, with one important exception. Agriculture depends on pollination. Imagine a world without nuts and berries and you get the picture. Pollinating insects have a cascading effect throughout the food web; intricate relationships between keystone flora and fauna species ultimately determine the total food yield on the planet. Until this summer season, bee colony collapse practically disappeared as a news item, with the unintended effect of reducing its urgency.
As a scientific mystery, bee colony collapse is of a piece with autism. Though the environmental and epidemiological links — autism rates are soaring in North America — are strongly suspected, the jury is still out. Every possible chemical connection, environmental contributor, behavioural artifact is being explored in an effort to isolate the cause(s).
No less a scientist than Einstein himself recognized the critical niche that bees occupy in the food web. His quote goes something like, "If bees were to disappear from the face of the earth, mankind will be close behind." He's been proven right about the speed of light, the nature of gravity, the mass of an electron and our relationship with space-time. Could he be right about this ultimate harbinger of survival as well?
Hugh Nevin
North Vancouver
