The Bees and the Balance

From my old blog

The Bees and the Balance

June 23, 2008

This weekend during a heat wave that rendered me completely useless, I stumbled upon an episode of Nature Silence of the Bees (KCET) about Colony Collapse Disorder and it’s suspected causes. Recently a few of the kids in my neighborhood threw rocks at a hive and I was pretty mad, trying to explain and educate these kids made me look like ‘that mom’ and probably once again embarrassed my kids….so of course I made them watch the program too… along with one other captive. A few parts were pretty heavy but they got the message loud and clear. My kids understand to a certain extent, I have several plants whose flowers did not get pollinated and they have no fruit, but nothing beats perspective.

There was a segment in which they showed a village in China whose overuse of unregulated pesticides killed all of their bee population…the bees have not come back. They still grow pears but they pollinate by hand using chicken feathers and dried pollen that they hand collect. Complete terrifying insanity!!! You can’t send a man to do a bee’s job. They are the link to food variety and flowering plant life which is the majority of the things we should eat, fruits and nuts. Grains are wind pollinated for the most part but talk about a drab carb diet.

Its not just the bees. They are not the first warning that we need to change our food system. One of the theory’s mentioned as a possible cause was mono-cropping. The idea was that the bees were being malnourished by only feeding on one type of flower. Imagine if we only ate potatoes, everyday, all day, for a month. We would be pretty weak and sick, it doesn’t take long to become malnourished. So just another possible theory. There are many more. Check out the program if you get a chance the full episode is available at :

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/by-title/introduction-2/38/

“Life hangs delicately in the balance” ~ 70’s era nature show narrator cliché

I like it because it is so true and can be applied to every aspect of our existence on this earth. Balance in the garden is natural and right.

seek balance :: find happiness

Filed under: Uncategorized , bees, beneficial insects, biointensive, ccd, colony collapse disorder, environment, ethiopia, flowering plants, food security, gardening, green, mono-cropping, nature, permaculture, travel