A Wonderment of Bees

Sachie loved her Granddad’s stories about the bad old days. He was so dramatic.

“Every kind of pollution. Noise pollution, light pollution, air pollution, water pollution, mind pollution. That last one was the worst, and probably the cause of all the others. People hung onto their terrible habits, even though their way of life was killing them.”

Sachie looked up at the dark sky, filled with millions of twinkling stars. “Couldn’t see any of those in the bad old days, could you?”

“Nope. Nor hear that.” Granddad indicated a night concert of owls, tree frogs and a distant train whistle. “Blessed quiet and dark, since we moved away from cars and created dark-sky sanctuaries. Back then you couldn’t hear yourself think or see a single star. But we’d best be heading for bed. Tomorrow’s a big day!”

The next day began as usual. Soon after sunrise, Sachie’s parents, Jess and Nikko, were out hand-pollinating the squash, cucumbers, melons and tomatoes. Sachie watched her Mom run her dry paintbrush over the inside of a male blossom to collect the pollen, then lightly roll the brush around the female blossom.

“We’ll have a great crop later this summer!”

Granddad told her of a time when the vegetables didn’t bear, the flowers were dying, people were going hungry.

“We lost so many bees, Munchkin. No bees to pollinate, soon there would have been no humans! But today we’re changing that!”

Sachie, Granddad, Jess and Nikko rode their bikes to the center of the settlement, where all their fellow Pollis were gathered for the big event. After years of carefully mending the soil, hand-pollinating the most bee-worthy flowers and vegetables, the beekeepers were ready to release the bee colony into the human colony.

Sachie heard a buzzing and humming and watched the swarm head for the gardens that surrounded the earth homes and windmills and shade trees.

“They like my weeds the best!” Sachie laughed. It had been her idea to let all the weeds flourish. She thought the dandelions and clover and goldenrod were just as beautiful as the roses and peonies!