Bee killers on the hill
Writing by treason on Thursday, 26 of April , 2007 at 1:41 pm
“Instead of dirt and poison, we have chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.”
– Jonathan Swift
In a week in which there were so many reports of the looming apicultural crisis, a friend informed us of a massacre in what is practically our own backyard. See, in our actual backyard this week, T and I have been discussing what we can do to attract more bees.
We like to stand under our purple robe locust which, when it produces those enormous blossom clusters each spring, attracts so many bees that the humming they produce will rattle your teeth. On the other side of the yard, bees cover our VLR – very large rosemary – creating a big buzz in stereo sound.
Soon our roses will open, and then the hummingbird and butterfly bushes will erupt – the Chinese lilac is already spent – but the golden rain and chitalpa trees and the crape myrtle will bloom to replace what has already come and gone. This means even more bees. I’ve put several containers of flowers out to attract others, and have visited bee websites to look for additional varieties to plant. I’m thinkin’ I need some bee balm.
We now have several types of bees showing up, but no bumblebees. I haven’t seen a bumblebee yet this season and I saw only one last year. People are running around in a panic over the polar bears – and don’t get me wrong, I do love the polar bears, and I’m still thinking about that one on Planet Earth who curled up in a ball, starving and wounded, to die in the snow – but polar bears don’t live in my backyard. Bees do. And when I don’t see bees, I know there’s a problem.
We have friends who work at Intel. I’ll say it again. INTEL. One friend called this week to inform us of a mass murder that took place on the premises. He’d noticed a tree that wasn’t producing any flowers, but one limb was attracting an impressive number of bees. He estimated bees possibly in the thousands. Intel made the decision to tape off the area – the company couldn’t very well have employees attacked by insects on their watch.
But our friend had a troubling story to tell. The next time he and other employees passed the tree on their way into work, they noticed piles of lifeless bees on the ground. Yes, Intel had terminated the bees.
The employees were outraged: “Haven’t they heard about the bee crisis? How could they kill all these bees?” But with another crisis looming – Intel will soon be laying off employees again – no one wanted to complain to management.
So there it is. With the local honey producers here in Nuevo Mexico, no beekeeper was contacted to come out to capture and relocate these bees? I suspect these were not Africanized “killah beez” – local media would have been alerted. To be fair, I do not know if there had been an attempt to save the lives of these bees, and I do not know if fear of stung employees was greater than the desire to preserve the bees, but the end result is this: thousands of dead bees.
I recall when I was working for the non-profit and a decision was made to eradicate the winged urbanites – er, pigeons – who lived on our roof. A professional poisoner was contacted. I merely suggested that this was a bad idea: After all, the university was nearby, and all our organization needed was a concerned student with a camera to wander by and document the carnage.
The pigeons dodged the bullet. Unfortunately, the bees at Intel did not.
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