The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
Bees are amazing little creatures. They work so hard, and they accomplish so much – for themselves, for humanity, and for the world. Would that we were only a tenth as industrious and conscientious as they are.
In the last couple of weeks there were articles about bees in National Geographic and USA Today. The Geographic story told of how, when attacked by a huge hornet, a beehive will arise en masse to kill the interloper. They do not accomplish that by stinging it, as we might suspect. Instead they surround it, beating their wings, and literally heat it to death. What astonishing social collaboration from so small a being!
Would people do anything similar if a monstrous enemy were to invade their space? I doubt it. We would probably conclude that it’s everyone for him/her self, and good luck to those who have the courage to confront the foe. But when a hornet comes to sting a bee and take its lifeless body to feed to the hornet’s larvae, every alarmed bee in the hive gathers to overcome the invader. It is a magnificent display of “one-for-all and all-for-one.” The Three Musketeers could not possibly do any better.
The first lesson bees give us is that collaboration against enemies is the best defense. Allies are thus a necessity.
Bees are the primary pollinators of thousands of species of plants all over the world. Without them, agriculture might be impossible, and the life of all species of animals and plants might be endangered. We should fall prone before the bees’ knees in gratitude.
That was the thrust of the USAT article. Bees are all too rapidly becoming extinct. Climate change and beehive collapse are destroying them. An article in Science Magazine said that researchers have discovered that American bumblebees have declined 46% during the two periods they were observed, from 1901-1974 and 2000 to 2014.
At this rate of decline, one of the scientists postulated, in a few decades most bees will be extinct. That is an incalculable disaster. Peter Soroye, a Ph.d. candidate at the University of Ottawa, declared that “we have entered into the world’s sixth mass extinction event, the biggest and most rapid biodiversity crisis since a meteor ended the life of the dinosaurs.”
The second lesson of the bees is that they cannot overcome the major disruptions of climate change. Only humans, working together, can do that. No species on earth, except Homo sapiens, is capable of stemming the ravages of climate change.
If there shall be no more buzzing bees in gardens and vegetable fields and fruit orchards, there shall be no more flowers or vegetables or fruit. It is the breaking of a biological chain which could ultimately turn our planet into a lifeless wasteland.
So then it isn’t only a self-absorbed narcissist who threatens the earth. Climate change and the thus-far unexplained dissolution of beehives also are playing havoc with creation.
Birds do it; bees do it; even monkeys in the trees do it. Let’s do it. Let’s act like bees.
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.