With each passing minute, the list of things I don't know about science gets longer.
This is what I know:
We all must eat.
The world's food supply is dependent on pollination.
Pollination is dependent on bees.
Colony Collapse Disorder is killing bees and nobody wants to talk about it.
I am only a poet. I can give you a poem and some links below the fold.
A World Without Bees.
Things I'll never know
will never take me by surprise.
The hunger of it swells outward,
ever wider the quiet ache reaches.
In the apple orchard no ladders reach.
Where we once did lift, twist and gently tap the stem
no fruit fills the basket.
Dew soaks only leaves and twigs.
The music of a moveable feast,
the melody of a red letter day
hits harder, cuts deeper.
The red of it is wetter.
When bees die in herds of swarming silence
blossoms will fall. Their screams will not echo
beyond tall grass between the trees.
Morning's wet shawl soaks its hem in the ferns,
fringe dragging down the furrows.
Pulling the stones, breaking clods, the blotched dome
above is tired, flabby and colder than a life without wine.
There is no hum, only dry, crackling bits of wing.
The queen lies still in her chamber,
sweetness and wax stand by unsought, unguarded.
Collapse is an overtaking of silence, a wave of stillness washing over.
Freedom can be so lonely.
What to think when everything is dying around us?
The air and sky have turned against us.
The water is burning but at least we are free.
The dust of the earth is sterile,
its green daughters are barren, but we are free.
Burnt black, we are free,
alone in the ashes, free.
Links to learn more about why apples may soon be worth their weight in gold:
BeeCharmers.org
ChemistryWorld
Pennsylvania State University study (pdf)
CBG Network
Many thanks are due to Lollo and our German friends for shining a light on this.
More links courtesy of DKos user Portia Elm:
pollinator.org and The pollinator crisis (nature.com) and the Xerces Society.