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Message from Pastor Marty

Every third bite

By Pastor Peter W. Marty

The honeybee may be the most studied creature on this planet, next to the human being. Entomologists in both hemispheres constantly track their habits and habitats. Where no entomologists reside, poets, inventors, thinkers, and entrepreneurs usually pick up the slack, engaging their imaginations in contemplating this little buzzing insect. Antarctic poets may be the exception here; theirs is the only continent without these fuzzy creatures.

We study bee colonies for their industriousness, their cooperative spirit, and their creative energy. We use bee products for cooking and for lessening allergies. We name universities after people connected with the bee world. (St. Am-brose, the 4th-century bishop of Milan, was said to have a “honeyed tongue, full of eloquence,” from the day that his father found the sleeping child’s head covered with a swarm of bees and yet untouched by harm.)

It has been a rough winter for bees. A scary winter. In 24 states across the country, bees are disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate. Beekeepers are opening up their hive boxes to find them empty. Millions of bees have mysteriously vanished, leaving behind no clues as to their whereabouts. Said one California beekeeper, David Bradshaw, who has found half of his 100 million bees missing, “I have never seen anything like it. Box after box are just empty. There’s nobody home.”

Scientists cannot figure out what is causing what they are now calling “colony collapse disorder.” This is the first nationwide crisis. There are no telltale signs, as in dead bodies inside of colonies or in front of hives, typical repositories for the corpses of dead nestmates. Bee losses on the West Coast are as high as 60 percent. In the East and in Texas, some beekeepers are tallying 70 percent losses.

Is it a new infection or a series of diseases that are compromising the bees’ immune system? Is it accidental exposure to some new pesticide that may be leading to behavioral changes? No one seems to know. Some believe that an agricultural chemical may be interfering with the brains of foraging honeybees, causing them to become disoriented and lose their navigational power for finding their way home.

Whatever is causing their demise, bees supply us with so much more than honey and beeswax. They serve as the world’s greatest pollinators. An estimated $14 billion of our U.S. econo-my is connected with honeybees transporting pollen from flower to flower. One-third of our American diet (particularly the healthiest third) is directly or indirectly the result of bee pollination. Every third bite we take is linked to the honeybee.

I am thinking about bees in this current crisis, not just because of what they mean to our supermarket shelves. Bees and honey are also a frequent topic in the Bible. It is in “the land of milk and honey” that the dispossessed Israelites sought to find a home. Now for the first time, I am beginning to wonder if it was merely the sweetness of honey that attracted the Hebrew people, or something more. Sure, a taste for sweetness is a universal delight. But maybe these wandering Israelites saw in this land of abundance, ease, and prosperity that things actually worked… that something was making things work. They were used to a barren world where nothing functioned well, least of all in their favor.

Sometimes the amazing handiwork of God be-comes most apparent when things break down and do not work exactly as we had hoped. Now stepping from brokenness into wholeness, our Hebrew ancestors may have grasped that, amidst all of the intricacies of creation, there was a special significance to this one that rolled itself in pollen and snorted nectar. The bee, of all creatures, would contribute to the fullness of new life. The land of Canaan would be a fertile land, a pollinating place. Life would become rich with pleasure and possibility — finally!

Pastor Peter W. Marty,

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