You gotta love Spring—four days ago I was snowed in, today it’s 52 degrees.

I took my dog to a nearby park to inspect buds and bees. We found this beautiful willow tree, all fuzzy in her soft pussiness with bees buzzing all around…

collecting pollen, collecting gold. Such symbiosis, such an elegant plan. An insect perpetuating a tree, the tree recycling our carbon waste…but that’s where the circle of life breaks, shatters—as we dump more dirt into the air than there are trees left to clean it.

Have we lost the desire to breathe? Are we insane?

In searching for some bee sounds, I learned some amazing things about bees thanks to a University of Montana research team, who has learned to understand the collective buzzing of bees in their hives. They found that the insects buzz differently when exposed to various poisonous chemicals.

“We found bees respond within 30 seconds or less to the presence of a toxic chemical,” says Research Professor Jerry Bromenshenk. “The military is interested in that for countering terrorism. But the real surprise was that the sounds bees produce can actually tell what chemical is hitting them.”

The insects also make different sounds when attacked by honeybee maladies such as varroa mites or foul brood. This may lead to applications that help beekeepers maintain healthy hives.

“We can tell not only whether the colony has mites or not,” Bromenshenk says, “but also the level of infestation they have. The sounds they make change with every stressor in characteristic ways.”

Now modern listening equipment and computer software have revealed a secret bee vocabulary much more intricate than previously thought.

Bees lack sound-making organs, but they buzz by vibrating their wings and bodies and pushing air through spiracles — tiny airways used for respiration.

Debnam said bees recycle the air in their hives every three minutes and never sleep, so they can provide 24-hour air monitoring, seven days a week.

So next time you see a bee, meditate on it, honor it and thank it for all the ways we are benefitting from their wondrous presence here.

I cling to hope, because the alternative is futile.

I turn my face to the sun and exhale. The light is noticeably stronger today. It feels the way March should. Blues are brighter, more seductive. Can you feel it?

CONTEMPLATIONS

• What can you collect of value today?
• What are you buzzing about?
• What goodness will you circulate?
• What glows in you?
• How will you spread light?

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The illustration from this post is available as note cards from Cafe Press.

Visit another gorgeous park in Spring here.

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