Hopeful News

All my life I have loved honey bees. I've never kept them, but I've always had a good relationship with them. They will fly around me and land on me and, other than the wasps that got me because Forrest threw a rock on their nest, I've never been stung. I quite admire them. I like that all those busy little creatures are female. I enjoy watching them go about their business.

When Alison and I were in business together, we had there was a bee hive in the wall of our office. We would come in to work in the morning and find dozens of them on the window sill, trying to get out. So, we would get out our paper cups and playing cards, capture them, and walk them out the door.

I've been reading the articles about bee colony collapse, recognizing that without bees most of the produce we eat can't set fruit. This has been pretty bleak news.

Today there is an article on Alternet that gives one hope for the bees. What do you know, it may be that the bees are being overworked. Maybe we should take this to heart, not just for the bees, but for all of the animals we raise under stressful conditions. And for ourselves.

And why, with all the articles I've read about the bees, has no one mention before this that we are raising them like factory reared cattle?