The Bees Knees

A bee

staggers out

of the peony.

Matsuo Basho

This is why so many people loved Basho. There’s a LOT here in just 7 words! Do bees get drunk? Do they enjoy it? Yes they DO on ethanol in fermented nectar , (it’s kinda like mead I guess), and I like to think yes they DO enjoy it after all the hard work they do! And for all but the completely wild bees, which are few and far between, practically all their work goes for naught anyway. Their honey, or almost all of it, is just stolen by beekeepers. So I can relate! They NEED that fermented nectar! At least by my way of thinking. And don’t kid yourself, a good portion of that buzzing is exactly that! Their buzzing about the injustices inherent in the system. “Why can’t any of the males lift a finger to help around here? And the queen thinks she’s all that and a bag of pollen! And what is up with the Great White One? I know he’s all powerful and he gives us some of that really great sugar water now and then and all but geez why can’t we have a deity that’s satisfied with maybe like 10%? Can you imagine how sweet that would bee???”

Basho, Lao Tzu, J.D. Salinger, Henry David Thoreau – what do they all have in common? They all, in their own ways and for varying lengths of time, separated themselves from society and pursued lives of quiet contemplation as hermits in the wilderness. They chose to separate themselves from relentless warfare, human suffering, injustice and unresponsive governments. One other thing they have in common is that they all share my admiration, and more than a little of my envy, for having the balls and the wherewithal to have done so. How many of us haven’t wished we could do it? Come on. You know you have! Only thing that keeps me from doing it right now is that it’d be really hard to get high speed internet.

These are the little pleasures. Internet, junk food, cable, getting staggering drunk now and then. They keep us from cutting bait and heading for the hills. Oh yeah, and if you’re not like me you have the societally mandated spouse, two kids and a dog each of which comes with plenty of trappings that keep you all from building your own shacks on your own Walden Ponds. Friends, family, social obligations, we all impose upon ourselves… or do we? What if these are all just figments of our socially fortified sentimental, mystic perceptions of what life ought to be? What if all these ideas are systematically implanted THROUGH the things we enjoy, (like TV, computers, games, reading), all for the singular purpose of keeping us from packing up the Chevy and driving to Walden Pond? In other words, keeping us around making more honey. For someone else!

There is an idea known in the East as “Wu Wei.” Roughly translated it is enlightened non-action in place of the hustle and bustle of “busy-work” for its own sake. There is a saying In the West known as “Woo Wee!” roughly translated as “Yeehaw,” “Fuckin’ A,” or “NOW yer talkin’!” They are virtually identical. Why do we force ourselves to do what we KNOW we don’t want to? I think a little discipline is good but come ON! Even BEES like to get pissed once in a while! We can’t keep pushing ourselves so hard! If we do we are going to have a major breakdown in our society and we will be FORCED to make a drastic change! The bees already HAVE in my opinion!

THIS requires a new paragraph! Most of us have heard of the disappearance of the bees. It’s no secret. If you get out at ALL you will probably have noticed fewer bees in the cherry blossoms of spring; fewer bees in the clover to accidentally step on; fewer bees to help perform the ecologically essential jobs of pollination and germination so that we have FOOD… yeah they’re just kinda gone. Beekeepers all over North America have noticed drops in their bee numbers. Significant, in fact DRASTIC drops. Plenty of explanations have been offered up. Maybe it has to do with the new style of farming that has so many farmers specializing in one single crop and planting HUGE acreages with that one crop only. This gives the bees only one short flowering/pollinating/germinating season. The rest of the time there’s nothing but patio flowers and rose bushes around the farmers’ houses. Others would guess that it could be pesticides like Roundup produced by our friendly neighbourhood Satanic evildoers known as Monsanto that are poisoning the bees. Well even though Monsanto is the cancer of all the diseases that threaten our environment, I have to wonder where all the bees are. The weird thing is that the bees are disappearing but the beekeepers haven’t found that many bee carcasses. And I KNOW that bees sometimes get pollen and nectar from plants that are toxic to humans. The honey they make from the nectar from these plants is actually poisonous to humans! Hold that thought for a while.

I’ve been out looking at the cherry blossoms in Korea and Canada. I always take notice of the bees, or lack thereof. I’ve seen the stories of farmers in the States who just can’t get their crop quotas without help from the bees so they have to fly bees in from Australia cuz the local guys they’ve dealt with for years just don’t have the populations. Then they haul those poor bees across the country and back by the truckloads.

My stepfather is a beekeeper and he gets all his honey from way WAY deep in the woods of British Columbia where it’s harder and a bit more dangerous to get at. It is my well-informed, (though admittedly imaginative), theory that the bees are simply going Thoreauian on our asses. Or Bashoian or Laotzuian or Salingerian! They’re sick of the injustices in their world like all of these authors. Shorter flowering seasons; farther to fly for flowers; wages decreasing while the cost of living is on the rise; and a government/God who is taxing their thoraxes AND posteriors off! They’re going native. It’s my guess that we will soon be stumbling on ENORMOUS colonies of bees in remote jungles and uncharted wilderness where they can keep ALL their honey, grow fat and work a HELLUVA lot less. I think it’s most likely that the honey they are producing will be strategically infused with nectar from various plants that are poisonous to thieving human beings. If not the bees will probably just Africanize. Ever heard of killer bees? That’s what I’m talking about. Guarding their hives from the greed of humanity that was the scourge of their previous existence. How can you blame them?

I tell you I’m a little bit surprised the bees have beaten us humans to it. I guess the fact that we are cognitive and more in touch with our intellectual sides while the bees are totally natural accounts for this failing on our part. But there’s no time like that present to be like the bees.