BEE BUZZ BEFORE THE WINTER – Alan Casline
Bee buzz before the winter
perhaps they can only be drones
for so long & the shareholders in chemical companies
will use little paint brushes
to pollinate
all the plants
when the honey bees are gone?
landscape without orchards,
without allotments and meadows of wildflowers
collapse of web, broke nature’s threads.
flowers drip desire
intensify attraction, color, light and smell
call unheard
none of the expected visitors
where are the fuzzy yellow and black workers?
who will drink our nectar?
insect sense such a many-sided affair.
government scientists at their lab benches see 121 different pesticides in bees, wax and pollen.
how many different pesticides
found in human body?
breast milk,
water samples hold some clues.
intestinal flora are vital.
do they mean to suggest
insecticides are killing insects?
do they ever mean to suggest
insecticides & herbicides are killing us?
about 30% losses of commercial hives
each of the last four winters, approximately 76% lost so far.
a chemical causes plants to wither and die
what does the chemical attack do to bees?
what does the chemical residue do to our guts?
we want the bees to work for us
(apples, oranges, strawberries, onions, carrots
nuts, sunflowers, coffee, soy beans, clovers)
while making few concessions to benefit them
organic gardening way
holds bees as part of planet-scale living system
focus bee keeping on bee health
rather than a huge cash crop
good management & clever organic techniques
bee diseases controllable within complex environment
healthy planet alive with organisms that co-exist.
what’s the normal percentage of loss over a winter?
how quickly can bee numbers regenerate?
what’s the minimum number of bees needed?
sense is touch
sense is sorted knowing
sense is aware awake
perhaps we can be caretakers,
lifelong & the shareholders
with all-living beings
bees find flowers
land on us to rest their wings
honey sweet each new day
Alan Casline
October 27, 2010
Elsmere, New York
