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A Balloon in Cactus
Honeybees: Have They Emigrated to Mexico?
By Maggie Van Ostrand
Her Email
Her Bio
There's been a big U.S. flap over the fact that honeybees seem to have gone missing. North Americans are becoming alarmed that, without pollination, foods such as almonds, apples, blueberries, peaches, and other goodies, will vanish, too. Honeybee pollination is also needed to make alfalfa and clover which feeds beef and dairy cattle. The New York Times even published an article about the collapse of bee colonies called Colony Collapse Disorder. When a problem in nature is given its own name, it's really important. Can you feel a price rise coming?
On the other hand, my landscape-designer daughter found an answer to the missing honeybee mystery in Farm & Market Report, an industry-related publication. As you might expect, the U.S. media is again fomenting panic, with people scurrying and worrying about global warming and where did the honeybees go and on which political party should the blame fall, when the Farm Report tells us the simple truth: it's a virus specifically directed toward the honeybee that causes extensive stress on their immune systems. Evidently, bees have no retirement pension plans. They probably fled to Mexico where the living is easy; there must be a bunch of bee expatriates in Mexico right now.
One has to wonder why humans who believe in spraying, shooting and slaughtering insects and animals, fail to look to themselves when nature goes awry. If the North Americans treated honeybees as they are treated in Mexico, maybe they wouldn't get sick and buzz off.
This brings to mind a story in A Treasury of Mexican Folkways by Frances Toor, who writes about how the Mexican culture treats its honeymaking friends. She tells us bees have been kept since before the Conquest, their honey highly prized as a sweetener and for medicinal purposes, and their wax for ritual candles.
"According to the Huichols, bees were created by the gods of the sea for the purpose of securing wax for candles when the wooden ones would not light. Tata Dios watches over the bees for the Tarahumaras; the Mayas of Chan Kom believe their bees are protected by pagan deities to whom offerings must be made for taking their honey. The Virgin Mary takes care of the bees for the Mayas of X-Cacal, who make her offerings of zaca or corn meal upon taking the honey from the hives; they also offer zaca to the wild bees when they take their honey, as otherwise. . .
Maggie Van Ostrand is a wonderful storyteller with great insight. To read all her articles all the time, we invite you to join our family of subscribers... it isn't expensive. A monthly subscription is just $5.00 USD - that's $1.15 per week. An annual subscription costs $30.00 USD - only $2.50 per month or 58 cents per week. If you're interested in living or retiring in Mexico, we think you'll find it's money well spent.
Subscribe today and always read all the articles!Maggie Van Ostrand, writer, lives in Ajijic, Mexico and Pine Mountain, California. Her stories appear in the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, El Ojo Del Lago, and various magazines. She co-authored "Home Is Where The Hurt Is" with Tony- and Grammy-winning country humorist Roger Miller, and ghostwrites for television sitcoms.
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