The bees have left

It may not be news to many, especially those who keep bees and those more in tune with their surrounding environment, but our bees are leaving. Where nobody knows. What is certain is that our pollinators are declining at a frightening rate. Just a few years back I can remember the low enveloping drone of bumble bees and honey bees in spring. This spring was quite disturbing, a paltry, feeble murmur of bumbles that seemed to have far less spring fervor than before and a small fraction in number compared to a couple of years ago. I witnessed maybe 5 honey bees this spring so far doing their best to gather pollen and nectar from the nodding tufts of yellow mustard flowers and the the plum trees that bloomed almost 2 months ahead of schedule. Pine trees were blooming responding to late spring like temperatures in January reaching near 80 degrees . Wild blueberries and pears following suit, countless species budding and blooming only to be confronted with temperatures that dove into the mid 20s. Needless to say, this winter along with the last and the one before were uncharacteristically turbulent with no seasonal consistency, spurring the native vegetation into seasonal transition usually to be met with frost and growth again, sucking the energy from the plants, bees, birds and the myriad of earth systems dependent upon a rhythm aeons old. This is not simply freakish weather but a sign of something much larger and more disturbing, what exactly is uncertain but we humans are most assuredly culpable. The kiwi vines are blooming now, so sweet in the air but a ghostly silence surrounds the vines--where have all the bees gone? I am sadly having to pollinate by hand to insure fruit production, never before have I had to do this. The irony is that the smallest and meekest of creatures disappear and we take little notice of their absence until their survices are no longer rendered. Humans cannot survive without pollinators and the most evolved plants, angiosperms which we rely upon for our survival cannot either. If the wildflower is not pollinated, the plum tree, the tomato, the olive, the almond, the bean, the loss is more than beauty or food, the loss is our humanity and our homeland planet Earth.