World Bee day occurs every year on May 20. Save the date. I always associate yellow with bees above all other things. Yellow is the symbol for happiness and bees with health vitality and complexity.
I love bees, Australian Native Bees ( blue bees) , European Honeybees, and to use an anthropomorphic techno description the boeing 747 of bees the Bumble Bee (Saw one in Tasmania while on holiday – fluffy jet engines)
As an aside Andy Warhol called honey, bee poop - the philosophy of Andy Warhol is a good read!
We are more aware of the important role bees play in sustaining our environment both natural and food production needs. Research increases our understanding of bees from their visual spectrum to language capability and even counting as discussed in the following link by researchers Scarlett Howard and Assoc Professor Adrien Dwyer - https://theconversation.com/one-then-some-how-to-count-like-a-bee-138815
It is amazing what these creatures do and give back to us. This flash fiction was written a little while ago. I know science works to understand and help us problem solve but always raises question as to what the knowledge would be utilised for? If only we existed in vacuums rather than sociopolictoeconomic technocratic hives.
Do we seek to supersede nature and potentially alienate ourselves further from it but ignorance has lead to catastrophic changes which needs to be rectified and requires rational and targeted problem solving. The impetus to commodify nature excessively beyond its limits, leading to depletion further fueling modification of its core functions so that our needs are met before all other species. Australian Native Bees only produce enough honey to keep their hive alive and the rarity of it makes it valuable for high end cuisine. Its flavour complex and unique like most Australian flora and fauna. If as research suggests bees can count and understand symbols perhaps, we can ask could just ask them what they think.
Without Bees - well a line from the poem of Lord Byron “Darkness” probably explains it most eloquently -
“The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.”
My modern take – forgive the crassness of expression compared to Byron.
Pollenpharma
Titanium eyes protrude as the yellow scented amino chains slot into the micromesh. Wings take flight at atom splitting speed. The air imperceptibly shimmers with each ripple.
A row of Van Gogh sunflowers play like cello’s as more pollen spills in unseen plumes down the stamen. Smoothly landing needle fine legs extrude nano juice. Once it mixes with the dust the collection pouches sip the mixture. Tiny precise clicks can be heard in the silence as protein codes entwine.
Up.
Next stem and flower.
The pouches swell; the fluid cellular meccano construction hums.
A thump.
Homeomorphic contortions scan. The platinum caresses encode the compatibility with the fuzzy black and yellow object.
Error.
Back to quota.
A perfect hexagon excretes into the air. The formulator moves on silently. Shakespearean roses with scents of another product name HG-CO567 recite sonnets as their intimacy is revealed.
It drifts with purpose to the field of perfectly shaped petals and leaves.
A boneless hand collects the dice like package left behind and places the beebread into a vacuum seal.
The buzz of the anomalous object is suddenly gone. The pharma’s laser finger closes.
‘I haven’t seen a second generation transapiarian for a long time.’
‘They were devolved a millennia ago.’
‘I know but they keep coming back for the crumbs left behind. This product is more potent.’
‘They follow the cube. The helix sequencing calls to strands of proteins taken from the original species that used to inhabit these parts. They were fully carbon based creatures. The third model removed the amphibious effect. They are more aligned to the Straussleviathan principle where dissonance is removed and evolution maintains perpetuity of best traits.’
Walking with liquid grace the pharmas see B - to power of 3 resting amongst the roses. Another loaf of bread levitates in the air.
‘Where does this one go?’
‘Bronze section. The other one is Platinum delivery. Those sunflowers are real.’
Clare L Rolfe © 2016
Comments