Busy as Bees

Oct 09 2019

They say the bees are dying.

Those busy little pollinators

we shamelessly conscript

as instruments of commerce.

The worker bees

the idle drones.

Who flit from plant to plant

perform their clever dance,

attracted, somehow, to beauty.

Then return home

like good suburban bureaucrats

and sober family men,

the hive mind par excellence

we take advantage of.

Who, according to aerodynamics

we said could never fly.

And then, that killer bees

would do us all in;

our deathly fear as children,

running shrieking

from those fuzzy yellow buzzing things

gunning for our flesh

swatting aimlessly at air.

But without which we would starve,

flatbeds, loaded with hives

trucked from farm to farm.

Just our luck, they're sloppy eaters,

harvesting nectar

while running amok in the pollen,

like hungry kids

swarming the kitchen

in muddy rubber boots.

And who sacrifice themselves

to defend the colony;

stinging once, then dying

to serve the greater good.

If only we were as selfless

or at least less self-important.

If we were busy as bees

but equally observant,

delighting in beauty

while taking time to stop

and smell the roses.

And to feel, as well

the concealed sting

of those tantalizing blooms,

their sharp admonishing prick.

As if to say

you can fool with mother nature

but at your own risk.

It's called “colony collapse disorder”, and the causes appear to be numerous: pesticides, climate change, infection with mites, the rigours of transport, feeding on mono-culture crops. Even over-work. Before this crisis, most of us didn't realize how much modern industrial agriculture depended on such a traditional practice as natural pollinators.

I think we all admire bees, despite our caution around them. They seem to embody the Puritanical work ethic that our culture celebrates: busy as a beaver, busy as bees. They're charismatic, with their furry yellow coats and comically plump bodies. And, like us, they are social animals: domesticated, regular in their habits, almost civilized!

While we conscript them to do our work, they still live as they always have, according to instinct and nature, and oblivious to us. But still, it feels as if there is something impure about our taking advantage this way: without consent or consideration, and in the same thoughtless way we use and exploit all the ecological services nature provides. This is the ultimate hubris of man: imagining that we are separate from nature, and not, as we are, inextricably enmeshed in it.