Herding Bees

It's the dog days of summer when news that's worthy of the name is hard to come by, unless you're sitting in a ditch in Crawford, Texas, while pro-war yahoos run their pick-ups over memorial crosses to the fallen.

And, yet... and yet... The world always offers enlightenment if we would just open our eyes wide enough. If we don't, the Miami Herald will force it on us.

Take the tribulations of Florida's bee population, for example. At least twice so far this month the Herald has sung the woes of Florida's beekeeper population and their miniature charges. In identical articles.

Check it out (registration is free) here on August 1 and here again on August 16.

Herald editors must feel the duplicate coverage is warranted because bees, today, are facing a range of trials that would intimidate Job himself. Deja vu times two.

Among the challenges --

• Flat-lining honey prices


• Slumping pollination service fees


• Aggressive competition from Chinese bee sweatshops


• Rising gas prices


• Escalating bee health insurance costs


• Pestilent hive bettles


• Blood-sucking Varroa mites


• American foulbrood bacteria


• Summer heat


• Summer rains

Why, the sad state of contemporary bee life in Florida is almost a microcosm of the entire Florida economy -- except for the blood-sucking part. No, we have that, too.

But, for bees, the most inexcusable threat of all? Human stupidity:

"Vandalism also plagues apiaries. Fueled by fear and curiosity, troublemakers shoot or knock over Del Signore's hives to see what will happen when the bees get agitated. "They eat food that depends on bees, then they go out and destroy the bees that are vital to their food source," Del Signore said. "It's dumb."

On second thought, maybe life in a Crawford ditch is a lot like the challenges facing bees. Dumb vandals can be found everywhere.