![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/27\/2021\/10\/Weaver-Ariza-Rebekah.-Personal-Photo.-Bumblebee-on-Thistle-Flower.-August-2021.-1.jpg\")
<\/a>Bumblebee on Thistle Flower. August 2021.<\/p><\/div>\n
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, \u201cColony collapse disorder (CCD) was first noted in 2006. And there are multiple threats to bees: including parasites, pathogens, pesticide exposure, habitat loss, and others.\u201d It seems that we are certainly seeing that play out on a local scale.<\/p>\n
Kathleen Truax, a master apiarist and avid gardener for 30 years, said, \u201cI\u2019m highly disappointed this year. There are no bees. There are absolutely no bees.\u201d Ms. Truax has worked with the Lauerentian Woods Project since 2009. They promote pollinators, such as honeybees, by planting native plants and species in Maine. Ms. Truax said, \u201cI\u2019ve had to pollinate my garden myself. I blame Monsanto directly. The sprays that they put out for farmers are killing the bees. The worst part is, most of the farmers don\u2019t even know it\u2019s wrong. They just need to make a living. But when the bees are gone\u2026what then?\u201d<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
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, \u201cI 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\u2019t have room to coexist with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t around as normal. And even worse, if the bees really have gone for good, what are we all going to do next year?<\/p>\n
The answer isn\u2019t good. Ms. Jacob said, \u201cWithout bees, the world loses color. We lose the plants that the bees aren\u2019t there to pollinate. Humans have to pollinate their own food in order to survive. Whole ecosystems die off because humans don\u2019t have time to pollinate food for wild animals. As a race, we lose.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems something is missing in Aroostook County this year. Bees. The few that did show up are late. Gardeners across the state are reporting lower levels of bees than normal. And up here in the County though, they have been hit very hard. Many gardeners are reporting such a lack of bees that their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8245,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730\/revisions\/8245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}