7-26 IAN Where Are Bees

 Remember the song by Peter Paul and Mary, “Where have all the flowers gone?” We know bees go to flowers and unlike the songs premise, the flowers are there but the bees aren’t. Where have all the bees gone?

 Recent press clippings about Syngenta, Monsanto and Bayer Crop Science getting involved in studies concerning colony collapse disorder and the dramatic and alarming reduction of bees in our country has everybody paying a lot of attention to bees. It’s funny how when you read the newspaper these kind of events all seem so remote as in it’s happening in a distant place. Not so for me personally in terms of the bee story. I have known John Hutchinson for several years,  been to his house numerous times and watched him harvest honey from the hives he has down in front of his house which is located  along a fairway of the Crane Creek Country Club. Listen to his story.  “I  always had two hives, I didn’t want anymore because it is a lot of work. It is a hobby for me and if you get too many hives it turns into a lot of work. I always had them down in front of the house and bees travel a couple of miles to get their pollen from all over the golf course and neighbors houses. Flowers are always better when there are bees around. We don’t have many this year, so outside of the West Nile virus years, this is the first year I haven’t had hives.”