The Ornamented Being

Circa 1900. These whimsical Victorian pins are shaped like a delicate bumble bee with garnet body and seed pearl wings.

I know that my blog is normally devoted to costuming but I  wanted to ask everyone to take a few moments to think about the plight of the bumblebee’s. The bumblebee population has declined 96% in the United States alone. Four species of bumblebees that were once abundant in the United States are now close to becoming extinct.

There are five easy steps to saving the Humble Bumble: 

 
 Reduce Your Use of Pesticides, we could go on and on about the reasons to focus on organic, pesticide free produce and products, but if you care about the bees reducing pesticide use is even more important. Many pesticides for both industrial produce and local gardening are proven to play a role in bee decline, and these pesticides can stay in the soil (and thus plants) for years. Begin your journey to pesticide free.

Buy Local Honey, bee keeping practices of industrialized honey makers have also contributed to bee decline. Buy your honey from a local honeymaker whose beekeepers you can ask about their practices. You may pay slightly more, it’s true. But the price of continued bee decline is more. Also, your honey will taste better!

Grow Some Herbs and Heather, whether in your garden, your yard or even a window box if you’re in the city, plant some basic herbs and some heather plants. You can even add some traditional wildflowers, but herbs and heather are pretty easy to grow even if you don’t have a green thumb, and they’re favorites of foraging bees.

Don’t Disturb the Bees That You Find, if you come across a hive or next, please do your best to not destroy it. Nobody likes to get stung, it’s true. However, chances are the bees won’t bother you if you don’t bother them. Really think about whether you need to disturb or destroy any bee colonies that you come across.

The most Important thing you can do as an individual is: 

Spread the Word, make sure that everybody you know also knows about the importance of protecting the bee population and what we can do to help with that.

Albert Einstein once said

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

Please don’t let this happen.