QuakerQuaker

Primitive Christianity Revived, Again

Silent Summer

What is wrong with this picture? I looked out at a field of blooming clover and was struck by what I did not see…bees. No honeybees, no bumblebees, no wild bees of any species. No buzzing…silence but for the songbirds in the nearby trees.

What is wrong with this picture? This from an NBC article: Honeybees don’t just make honey; they pollinate more than 90 of the tastiest flowering crops we have. Among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers. And lots of the really sweet and tart stuff, too, including citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, grapes, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons. In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees. So if the collapse worsens, we could end up being “stuck with grains and water,” said Kevin Hackett, the national program leader for USDA’s bee and pollination program. “This is the biggest general threat to our food supply,” Hackett said.

U.S. beekeepers in the past few months have lost one-quarter of their colonies — or about five times the normal winter losses — because of what scientists have dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder. The problem started in November and seems to have spread to 27 states, with similar collapses reported in Brazil, Canada and parts of Europe. “This crisis threatens to wipe out production of crops dependent on bees for pollination,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in a statement.

“For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.”
— Rachel Carson

And may I add, this goes for all life on Earth. Are we entering our silent summer?

0 members like this

Comment by Laura Scattergood on 6th mo. 17, 2015 at 5:42pm: I think we need to get something like Victory Gardens going, forgive the reference to war, and get victory bee colonies going. I am fairly interested in learning how to work with bees, fairly labor intensive of course, and I hope many will be called to this work.

Comment by William F Rushby on 6th mo. 18, 2015 at 7:00am: Thank you, Roger, for this revealing story! I need to check flowering plants here, to see what the bee population is. Last year there were plenty of bees, including honeybees. I have been so preoccupied with other matters this summer that I haven't looked.

Other species also pollinate, such as moths. But I don't know what species of plants they service. I was amazed in walking through a pasture at our former place in Rockingham County VA in the twilight. I saw many moths "working the blossoms," I think of thistles.

Comment by Roger Vincent Jasaitis on 6th mo. 18, 2015 at 9:00am: Laura, I have f F)friends that are taking up beekeeping in this cause. I would myself, but the stings are toxic to me. I do love honey though, and support the local hives. And William, the first step is noticing the problem, everyone get out in their gardens and plant wildflowers instead of lawns!

Comment by Laura Scattergood on 6th mo. 18, 2015 at 12:35pm: That's cool Roger. Matter of fact that's what I am doing at the moment here in Montana. I have an acre and I am putting in clover and a cool mix of wild flowers, growing season is short here. I had an odd experience of being swarmed by yellow jackets when I was 23 and since then stings don't bother me much. Apparently being stung can go either way, making one less or more sensitive, but in my case less. I am also no longer afraid much of being stung having been through that. I am so glad you brought this matter up! bzzzzzz!

Comment by Laura Scattergood on 6th mo. 18, 2015 at 1:09pm: One more thing to have a bee in my bonnet about! Maybe that's why I was humming the Sting song. We're spirits. . . It can't be a coincidence! Synchronicity! Okay, I'll stop now, this actually is serious and definitely something an ordinary person can do something about!

Comment by Roger Vincent Jasaitis on 6th mo. 18, 2015 at 1:16pm: Lawns are food deserts for bees and butterflies.

Comment by Laura Scattergood on 6th mo. 18, 2015 at 2:05pm: Yeah, that's a goo dway to put it food deserts, and actually just putting in the clover is so much easier. I am over-seeding with Dutch white clover. At one point I had a good start and then rented my house out, and the tenants messed up my clover, I guess they didn't get the memo. Dutch white clover is tough though and requires less water, and is so much greener and nicer to walk through barefoot. The whole lawn thing needed to go with a lot of other ideas from suburbia that really didn't work out very well, it seems.

Comment by Laura Scattergood on 6th mo. 19, 2015 at 2:01pm: So we turn our lawns from deserts for the bees into DESSERTS for the bees, huh? Okay, enough of my corny jokes, I think. Although besides my jokes being silly, perhaps the image will cause people to be encouraged! Certainly not in Montana, but in some locales, folks actually have to fight city hall or the neighborhood associations to put in natural lawns! We gotta wake up on this. . That and the Pacific Garbage Patch are probably my two main areas of environmental concern where I personally make a lot of effort. We all have our service areas, it seems.

Comment by Roger Vincent Jasaitis on 6th mo. 19, 2015 at 4:03pm: The poet Rumi wrote; “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise , so I am changing myself.”

Comment by Olivia on 6th mo. 24, 2015 at 5:37am: Thank you, Roger!

Thank you, Laura, for the specific Call! I hope you're able to do more with that. It does sound like it might be a l....

(you know)

Comment

You need to be a member of QuakerQuaker to add comments!

Join QuakerQuaker

RSS

Welcome to
QuakerQuaker

Sign Up
or Sign In

Or sign in with:

Support Us

Did you know that QuakerQuaker is 100% reader supported? Our costs run to about $50/month. If you think this kind of outreach and conversation is important, please support it with a monthly subscription or one-time gift.