In addition, Aroostook County is home to a fair number of homesteaders. With a focus on a simple, independent lifestyle, homesteaders frequently grow large gardens as a part of their belief in self-sustainability. The lack of bees has them scrambling to salvage part of their gardens after a mostly failed growing season. A lot of them are hoping for a better fall crop, but are expecting a lean winter.
In Backyard Gardeners of Maine, a Facebook group, this subject has come up almost daily. It seems that in a lot of places across the state, our bees have just not shown up to do the job like normal. Laura Jacob said, “I think the bees are relocating as we take resources away and put more buildings up. It only makes sense. We chase them away. We dig up the plants they use for food and lay down concrete. They don’t have room to coexist with us.”
Hand pollination takes a lot of time and is just not practical for many gardeners. For even small-scale farmers, it is unrealistic. It requires the gardeners to go plant to plant and flower to flower. They have to use a small brush or cotton swab to gather pollen and carry it to the next plant. Without bees, even a small garden becomes overwhelming to pollinate.
The ideas from the gardeners and homesteaders are as many and varied as political opinions. They range from hives dying due to a series of overly harsh winters to bees being poisoned by bug spray. The debate has engaged the attention of gardeners, but no one has answers. Whatever the truth may be, the reality is that this year the bees just aren’t around as normal. And even worse, if the bees really have gone for good, what are we all going to do next year?
The answer isn’t good. Ms. Jacob said, “Without bees, the world loses color. We lose the plants that the bees aren’t there to pollinate. Humans have to pollinate their own food in order to survive. Whole ecosystems die off because humans don’t have time to pollinate food for wild animals. As a race, we lose.”
Whatever the answer to the lack of bees may end up being, it seems that we need to figure it out sooner rather than later. We, as a race, must learn to respect our planet, down to the smallest bug. An ecosystem only works when all the parts are present and working together.
