I'd call it scary. I haven't seen a single European honeybee on a blossom in my yard this year. I'm neither an expert in matters horticultural or apiary, but I'm a pretty keen observer of local nature. I've seen wasps of many varieties, carpenter bees and some pollinating flies, but no bees.
By this time their usually buzzing around the clover, and the other flowers in the yard, but this year, nothing.
The experts are still not sure of the cause, and while the European honeybee arrived with the pilgrims, this non-native variety has been around to help us proliferate fruits and vegetables for centuries. The decline in the population has been blamed on everything from insecticides to microwave cell phone signals that some theorize disrupts the bee's natural navigation systems.
In this bee shortage, an un-attributable quote from Albert Einstein has surfaced. With the web being what it is, it's flying around the world like, well, bees in search of pollen. The quote: "If the bee ever disappeared off the surface of the globe then , man would only have four years of life left," seems to be specious.
Still, I'd rather risk a sting or two then suffer the consequences of losing, permanently, our most industrious pollinators.
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