In 2006 it was announced that honeybees were disappearing…but I noticed even before that the honeybees seemed scarce. I had seen them often and abundantly while growing up – I remember seeing them on flowers outside of stores and restaurants when I was little. I remember them buzzing all around my Grandma’s many flower gardens. I remember running through our backyard and stepping on (and getting stung a couple times- before learning to be careful where I stepped) the honeybees as they pollinated dandelions. But the older I got, the less honeybees I saw. No longer did I see them on flowers in my Grandma’s flower gardens, or on flowers anywhere, really, except on rare occassion (and certainly not on dandelions) and then it was only one or two little lonely bees.
I thought it was strange but that maybe it was just because I was older and less observant…until 2006 when it was announced that it wasn’t just me who noticed fewer – scientists did too. And here we are, June 2011, almost 6 years later and still hardly a honeybee in sight. In fact, on TV yesterday it was brought up again, that scientists still haven’t been able to figure out what has (been) happening to all the bees. They stated that 1/3 of all honeybees in both North America and Europe have been lost, and scientists still don’t know why (they have theories of course including bee-mites, disease/viruses, lack of food, and pesticides, but no pinpointed causes).
But today I do have some good news: for the first time in YEARS I saw not one, not two, but 8 honeybees pollinating flowers (lavenders and gerbera daisies) around the outside of the building at work. Go little bees, go! I’m rootin’ for you!
It made me happy to see some, since literally I have not seen a single honeybee in at least 3 or 4 years, and before that they were few and far between. Maybe there’s some hope yet…
Rebecca Maidl 