In our real lives, away from our beach chair post, we lead normal lives unfortunately quite far away from Wanda Louise and her family. A few years back, however, they came to visit us. The only slightly elder of my favorite first boy cousins once removed (Wanda Louise's oldest twin son for those of you who skipped geneology class) rightfully noted that we live "in the middle of nowhere." The running joke is it is not the end of the earth but you can see it from here. Suffice it to say we live in the middle of farmland.
For this reason, one of my husband's clients (he is a landscaper) thought we would be the ideal spot to house one of her beehives. We agreed - we have plants and flowers everywhere... good plan.
Yesterday, however, we received disturbing news. She came to visit the hive and we noticed that the worker bees (harvesters) were not bringing in pollen. When we looked in the hive, it was about half as full as it should be. Problem, not enough pollen in the area. Bigger problem, they might not survive the winter.
What?!?!
Did I mention that I live in the middle of NOWHERE?! We drive golf balls in our back yard to the farm behind us because there is NO DANGER of us hitting a house (and for the record, my husband can drive a golf ball over 300 yards!). How can there not be enough pollen?
Answer: the farmer is growing genetically modified soy beans so the flowers are too small for the bees.
When my family first learned that we were getting bees, my sister's text reply was "on purpose." Now that we have them, however, we feel a great deal of responsibility for them as this earth really does need them. I am quite devastated by this news. The keeper is going to try to provide them some pollen so they can fill their hives, but please take this lesson to heart - plant flowers - lots and lots - and do not eat genetically modified foods. BEE kind to mother earth!
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