Bees

I never thought that I'd have a love affair with bees- I've always been more of a butterfly girl. But, now, I am in love with the bees AND their magical honey. Not to mention all of the beautiful flowers that sustain them. I also never would have thought that ANY love affair could be inspired by the death of the beloved! But that is partially what has happened. Let me explain...

In the past few weeks, my son and I have found 3 dead bees- each a different species -all within a block of our home, the last one on our front doorstep.

I had wanted to 'pin' the first one (the wannabe 'naturalist' in me) and researched devotedly on YouTube to learn how. Then my son (3 and a 1/2 years old) denied me the 'pleasure' by refusing to let me. I understand his disinclination. I felt some, myself, whilst watching the instructional videos. So, I offered the alternate idea of burying it and 'returning it to the earth.' He seemed to think that this was appropriate and we are still planning on doing it.

In the meantime, we have found more bees to bury (since the initial writing of this post, the number has risen to 6 or 7! And, as of this final writing, we have returned all of the bees to the earth that were not quite whole or 'perfect specimens' - though, I have kept two... because I'm weird like that!)

The other Bee-love-inspiring thing we did was to watch the documentary "Queen of the Sun." Please, please, please get your heart and your mind and your eyes and ears out there to take in this meaningful documentary (we found it on Netflix). It is beautiful and wacky and shocking and dis-empowering and lovely and important. I say dis-empowering only because it makes one realize what a complete mess we are in. Our problems are so widespread and so part-of-the-system that it does seem like: Where do we even begin? How can this be happening? What are we going to DO? What CAN we do? (At which point, it starts seeming hopeless...). This is not to say that it actually IS hopeless, though, only that it may be worse than one might have previously thought.

As good old Dr. Seuss has said (We also watched the new, crazy version of The Lorax, recently, and of course we do read the book from time to time):

Unless. 

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, 

Nothing is going to get better. 

It's not.

So, step #1- See that documentary! It has a list of steps of its own at the end of it showing how we can help the bees. Please pay attention!!! It is easier than you think.

Step #2- Be(e) the creative human that you are and work out your OWN way of helping the bees! (Buy fewer almonds, plant more bee-friendly flowers, buy local, raw, honey, etc. etc. etc.)

FOR THE LOVE OF BEES!

PLEASE!!!!

~Aunt Magic