Bees!

As per request, I've made an email address available on my profile for any questions or comments that you'd like me to address one-on-one.  Also, welcome new followers!  I'm glad to see that my blog has been generating a little interest.  Although now I have an uneven number of followers and Charlie is dangling off on his own on the second line (sorry Charlie!), but nevertheless, thank you so much for your support!

So the topic of bees has been on my mind lately, especially after I saw the Bee Movie that Jerry Seinfield obnoxiously advertised for like a month straight when it first came out.  It was recently playing on the HBO channel I get here, pretty much one of my few opportunities to hear some English spoken once in a while.  Anyway, two main things cross my mind when I think about bees, both of which were subjects dealt in the Bee Movie, although a little more unrealistically.     

One, is that bees are often martyrs.  Martyrs for the protection of their hive.  As I think about the "heroic" factor of our current culture, I find that it's dying.  I would not characterize this as a bad thing, because we don't really need a bunch of idiots running around willing to die for any small cause, but I find the whole "knight" culture has largely disappeared.  Sure people, or men specifically, are still willing to defend the honor of their lady but long gone is the neccessity for the sacrifice of life for protection.  When a bee stings someone in order to protect themselves or their hive, they lose their stinger and subsequently die.  I'm sure that many other animals have been equipped with similar "martyr"-like weapons, however bees seem to be the most notable. 

Two, is the dying of bees.  Although Bee Movie did not address the dying of the bees, it did address the consequences of the removal of bees from the process of pollinization.  Before I left for Taiwan, I remember a very poignant commercial done by Haagen-Dazs concerning the declining population of honey bees and what that means to us.  You can watch it here:  

As a person who is very concerned about environmental issues, this seems to be one of the many problems that plague our generation.  Sure we could figure out a way to artificially pollinate plants after the bees are gone but we all know that losing even a small component in our very intricate and dependent ecosystem can lead to unseen and probably worrisome troubles.  Haagen-Dazs has developed a very cute website for the cause where you can learn more about why the loss of honeybees would be detrimental to many of the ingredients that they use in their ice cream (strawberries, almonds, and peaches to name a few) as well as what they are doing to help the cause.  You can visit it here.  Apparently, you can help by planting certain flowers that attract and can maintain bee populations (if you don't mind having bees hang around your home!).  I know that earlier, Burt's Bees had a similar "save the bees" campaign and were giving out free packets of bee-friendly seeds online.  As an avid fan of their chapstick which uses beeswax as a main ingredient, I'm sure Burt's Bees and I would both like to see the survival of honey bees!       

So this is my promised post on bees!  I hope it lived up to the expectations.