Sweetness And Light Part 8

Others are trying to go back to the old, pure races. Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, has become famous for its Italian bees. Introduced in the 1880s, an act of Parliament shortly afterward forbade the importation of any other kinds of bees, and the isolated island is now a haven for what may be the last pure stock of this prized race and an important genetic resource.

There are those who think the industrialization of the honeybee is behind its current problems, that we have put too much pressure on its highly evolved systems. In Rudolf Steiner's 1920s bee lectures, he warned that the artificial breeding of queens could have dire effects. When a beekeeper in the audience objected, Steiner replied that they should talk again in a hundred years' time. That time is nearly up. Queen rearing has transformed beekeeping-people need not worry about losing their stock through swarming and can manipulate the nature of their hives simply by buying new queens-but perhaps some of Steiner's concerns still need to be addressed; perhaps we are pus.h.i.+ng bees too far out of their natural behavior.

At the conference, I was disturbed to discover that some beekeepers were starting to put the deadly organophosphate, coumaphos, into their hives, to kill the varroa mite and the hive beetle. Such chemicals work by disrupting the nervous system: this is serious stuff. Although all such products must go through stringent controls, it is not hard to imagine how a less scrupulous beekeeper, pushed against his margins, trying to cure his bees and produce a crop, might treat chemicals in a more casual manner. The specter of China's problems might not be enough to stop independently minded individuals-as beekeepers so often are-from polluting their hives and perhaps putting themselves at risk, as well as honey's pure reputation.

Everywhere this mite has gone, beekeepers have been forced to change their customs, and many have stopped beekeeping altogether. I spoke to one old hand at the conference who kept just a few hives now, and had a philosophy of respecting his insects: "If you keep bees, you have to learn from bees," he said. "I'm seventy-seven and I'm still learning." This man gave a wide berth to organophosphates, and was hoping to find bees bred with a tolerance to the varroa mite. He pointed out another sad aspect of the varroa epidemic: once, many people were "beehavers "beehavers," rather than beekeepers beekeepers, with a few hives in their backyard, he said. Diseases had made this impossible; they required too much intervention; gradually people had given up, or not replaced their dead colonies. It seemed such a shame that bees were moving out of neighborhoods: how would we keep in touch with the honeybee if it moved away from us?

WHEN A NEIGHBORHOOD'S honeybees depart, people might not miss the bees much, but they often notice their gardens producing fewer vegetables; they miss the bees' powers of pollination. About four-fifths of the world's plants rely on pollination by animals, mostly insects; a third of the food we eat comes from plants that exist thanks to them. honeybees depart, people might not miss the bees much, but they often notice their gardens producing fewer vegetables; they miss the bees' powers of pollination. About four-fifths of the world's plants rely on pollination by animals, mostly insects; a third of the food we eat comes from plants that exist thanks to them.

But there are problems here, too, and sometimes from an unlikely source. In a book published in 1996, The Forgotten Pollinators The Forgotten Pollinators, the authors Stephen Buchmann and Gary Paul Nabhan point out that the spread and success of the highly successful hive honeybee, Apis mellifera Apis mellifera, has encroached on the territory of other kinds of bees, with a consequent impact on biodiversity. Some species now exist in fragile "islands" that are in danger of sinking beneath the swelling sea of sameness.

Our casualness toward bees of all sorts is all the more remarkable because, even as they suffer from pesticides and impoverished ecosystems, scientists continue to find them a constant source of fascination. They are currently being investigated as potential scouts for land mines; for a deeper understanding of social evolution; for their ability to "talk" in an age of ma.s.s communication. The International Bee Research a.s.sociation, based in Cardiff, Wales, has a library of 60,000 papers, 4,000 books, and 130 journals; they produce a quarterly publication of 350 apicultural abstracts, gathering the latest research from around the world.

There is much still to discover. As we've started to think of ourselves more as animals, we can now believe our fellow creatures to be capable of greater feats. What about animal consciousness-do bees dream? If we see ourselves as part of nature, rather than above it, we can explore its parts-not least the honeybee-with a renewed sense of awe.

But, for the point of wisdom, I would chooseTo know the mind that stirs between the wingsOf bees ...-George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy The Spanish Gypsy, 1868

I SOMETIMES THINK of a place that first led me to think about honey. The garden of the late filmmaker Derek Jarman feels like the end of the earth, with its s.h.i.+ngle spreading to a seaside view of the nuclear power station at Dungeness, England. One summer, I lay in his garden with my eyes closed and smelled the salt tang of the sea and the scents of the flowers, and listened to the bees among his architectural plants. One of his diary entries mentions how he watched the bees crawl hungrily up the green woodsage. I found a local beekeeper, Malcolm Finn, who harvested this clear, fragrant woodsage honey, and sold it through a roadside stall. Otherwise, he serviced Coca-Cola vending machines in China. All this planted the taste of a place in my mind, and made me realize the connections between humans, insects, and plants. of a place that first led me to think about honey. The garden of the late filmmaker Derek Jarman feels like the end of the earth, with its s.h.i.+ngle spreading to a seaside view of the nuclear power station at Dungeness, England. One summer, I lay in his garden with my eyes closed and smelled the salt tang of the sea and the scents of the flowers, and listened to the bees among his architectural plants. One of his diary entries mentions how he watched the bees crawl hungrily up the green woodsage. I found a local beekeeper, Malcolm Finn, who harvested this clear, fragrant woodsage honey, and sold it through a roadside stall. Otherwise, he serviced Coca-Cola vending machines in China. All this planted the taste of a place in my mind, and made me realize the connections between humans, insects, and plants.

While writing this book, I had many such fly-by encounters where information and then further phone calls, e-mails, and postcards were exchanged. Everyone I met, or knew, had some apian anecdote to divulge. I heard a tale of a mysterious wood in Romania, where Romany gypsy bands went for an annual trip on hallucinogenic honey; a friend spoke of his university mate who had a large bee tattooed on his arm, symbolizing how his departed girlfriend had p.r.i.c.ked the bubble of his illusion, a reference to the Paul Valery poem "L'Abeille." "L'Abeille." Someone else offered the anecdote of how a bees' comb had once dropped into the Queen Mother's soup. Yet another mentioned how propolis had been used in varnishes in Italy from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries; its presence might be one of the secrets of the tone of Stradivarius's violins, perhaps because of the quality of the propolis in Cremona, which came from poplar trees. A couple brought back a pot of honey for me from the Karoo in South Africa, a special place with its beautiful fynbos flora, and one of the longest inhabited regions on earth. Someone else offered the anecdote of how a bees' comb had once dropped into the Queen Mother's soup. Yet another mentioned how propolis had been used in varnishes in Italy from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries; its presence might be one of the secrets of the tone of Stradivarius's violins, perhaps because of the quality of the propolis in Cremona, which came from poplar trees. A couple brought back a pot of honey for me from the Karoo in South Africa, a special place with its beautiful fynbos flora, and one of the longest inhabited regions on earth.

Each reference reflected something of the giver's outlook or experience: my diplomat brother would come across bees in flags and local customs; a friend's mother revealed how many years ago she had rushed up to a remote corner of her family home, where the insects had nested, and "told the bees" of her recent engagement. The story moved me; she had shared such a special time of happiness and expectation by performing this archaic custom, and it showed me, once again, just how close and important bees have been to humans, even within living memory.

Such precious connections between people, bees, and plants have grown and gathered for millennia. Will they continue if bees withdraw further from our lives? If we lose such closeness, an intimate part of our contact with nature falls away; if we lose our respect for these miraculous and mysterious insects, it is at our peril. For life is all one: as big as the world and as small as the honeybee.

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ILl.u.s.tRATIONACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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ABOUTTHEAUTHOR

Hattie Ellis writes about the relations.h.i.+p between people, places, and food. Her previous books include Trading Places Trading Places, portraits of specialty shops and their owners, and Eating England Eating England.