None of Your Beeswax
by Richard Oxman

Dedicated to R.H.

“Honeybees have evolved an extraordinary form of communication known as the ‘waggle’ dance. It is highly symbolic, separated as it is in both time and space from the activity it grew out of (discovery a nectar source) and the activity it will spur on (getting other bees to go to that nectar source).” — The author’s buddy from NOVA

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years left to live.” — Albert Einstein

I decided to leave drafts of (Apoidea-related) cute observations in “My Documents” (under the title Left for Dead, which won out over both To Buzz or Not Two Buzzes? and The Departed: From Bee Whirl to Hollywood). Ditto for my detailed O(h)Scar notes.

Now to minor matters, as O. Wilde would say: There’s mass suicide going on in the bee world.

A mysterious ailment known as hive collapse, also referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder, is causing agricultural honeybees to abandon their hives…and disappear. Nationwide.

Former beekeeper Derrick Jensen (of Endgame fame), in response to an inquiry I made about the phenomenon recently, sent me the following (as part of a very long missive, which included tons of documentation, available to the reader upon request):

“There is a very strong possibility that what is happening to the bees (and who knows how many other life forms is caused by genetically engineered crops, and that the honey being produced by the bees from these crops and the effects of pesticides is causing the honey produced by the bees to be toxic to them (and perhaps to all who eat honey?).”

I believe that Derrick received this from a mass email. No matter, the content/thrust is spot-on-target.

Again, lifeless bees have not been found lying around hives as is usually case when threats to the bee population rear their head. They have fled. These dying dynamos don’t do the typical death scene you’d find at Bee World Theatre. Nay, they simply vamoose. They are not the victims of varroa mites…or any other cause that humans can currently compute. The unseemly goners have –without precedent– vanished into our thick, polluted air, it would seem. Seamless prestidigitation?

The question of what people can do to save the planet –with or without bees– is easy to answer.

But before I answer that, permit me to answer another question, the one that has to do with my style of writing, these “pontifications” of mine. “Why don’t you communicate more directly…so that one and all can easily digest what you have to say, Ox? Why do you go through all of those literary dance steps?”

Well, to draw upon the beeswax again, before bees digest anything they have to go through what’s called a waggle dance. As touched upon in the opening quote above, a bee performs the waggle dance when she wants to inform other bees of a nectar source she has found. The waggle occurs on a special dance floor, which is conveniently located near the hive entrance to facilitate quick entry and exit of foragers; only bees with highly profitable sources of nectar execute the dance. Arriving back at the nest, a bee with news to share immediately proceeds to the dance floor, where other bees waiting for news gather around her. During the waggle, she dances a figure-eight pattern, with a ‘straight’ walk in between the loops and a sporadic fluttering of her wings.

My style is inextricably linked to a(n) (a)cute concept of communicating which underscores mystery, danger and data in a way that is much more like imagining a genealogical source vis-à-vis a complex family bush…rather than with a run-of-the-mill, simplistic family tree. Tell it slant, as Emily Dickinson might say. For to label at all is to remove the unpleasantness of actually having to deal with an object, person or concept (or departure, for that matter), yes? My approach potentially undermines the reader’s ground of being, and demands an attempt at literary music, to celebrate unknowability, if nothing else. I am obliged to be oblique.

So says the bleak, presumptuous author.

Mundane concerns, I always trust, will receive light, be nourished in the process. Just like what happens when our winged wonders forage for nectar and pollen, and inadvertently transfer pollen from the male to the female components of flowers in the process.

Having said all that, I’m afraid I don’t actually choose a particular style these days any more than a bee wakes up with an “idea” on a given day to do the waggle. And having given up long ago on the possibility AND importance of numbers, I would be quite satisfied with pollinating a solitary soul.

Consider that my answer respecting the “save the planet” question might begin to form –for you, possibly– once hopelessness is embraced. In other words, the only hope for us all…lies in hopelessness. Accepting, if you can see, that nothing on the alternative table is…edible, life-sustaining, most serving amounting to self-serving dishes. AND rejecting the notion that one must hold hope to one’s breast at the start, in order to produce nourishing milk for the world.

None of what I hear or read these final days is without some form of stock optimism. Hope couched in this or that reasoned plan. Supported by all sorts of documentation and rationale. Few acknowledge that we are absolutely/truly in worldwide death throes (which no one will escape)*, and those who do invariably think of our decline in the derivative terms of past end-of-the-worlders. Or tout cornball, contradictory solutions.

*A good measure of this is to note the recent, indecent hour Amy Goodman leisurely/routinely devoted to interviewing Wesley Clarke on the left-influential Democracy Now! and the 35-Point Practical Guide for Action offered up by “the more radical” (Endgame-talking, gun toting) Stan Goff…which reads like those silly little handouts for elementary school children that instruct kiddies on how they can save the planet through recycling, etc.; usually, even-numbered lists of 50 to 100 non-threatening activities are delineated, with no more of a sense of urgency (or update) than what’s embodied in a typical public service announcement. Leftish standbys routinely posting (for subscription appeal?) obsolete tactics and/or false hope articles and/or worse –Definitive examples upon request!– are unconscionable. Ignorant? It is all highly indefensible, offensive to the max, whatever the case may be.

Note, please, that the above rises way above the blah blah of general complaining/criticizing…if you see 2008 as The First Year As Per Albert. (See Einstein’s quote above.)

But I can’t think of a better example of what’s wrong with the vast majority of socially-conscious expression these days than what transpired at the recent 79th Academy Awards in Hollywood. Somehow our U.S. citizens with the greatest potential societal influence decided to spotlight Al Gore as a savior of sorts –see http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair03032007.html for starters– whilst celebrating worldwide violence and disingenuous personal strides simultaneously. With no sense of irony.

Anyone who doesn’t know AG’s background with regard to Kyoto, or the degree to which the Academy’s pronouncement that it’s “gone Green” in all respects is pure self-deception/PR won’t know what I’m talking about here, of course. That’d be the same fools who are cheering on Clooney and Cheadle vis-à-vis Darfur intervention, without a clue about how current concern with Sudan has been manipulated by the powers that be, proposals for invasion being placed on the table/designed by the worst mass murderers in our country’s history. The Congo components of cells, laps and play stations are taken…and taken for granted.

Furthermore, people who applaud this year‘s multi-winner “The Departed” are –at best– incapable of recognizing gratuitous horror blended with bad art, a glamorization of criminality, appealing to its audience’s worst instincts. Our U.S. Royalty is no more capable of addressing the unabated momentum which distances us from Nature than Queen Elizabeth II could make a statement against Iraq; it goes against their collective constitution, celebrities playing exactly the same game as politicians…’cross the board. The shameless display of diamonds –in the year when this ignorant industry is priding itself on addressing conflict minerals– speaks for itself. They have done a great job of spreading misinformation which –finally, now– will never have a chance of being corrected. Details and elaboration –once again– upon request.

But I’ve written ad infinitum on this kind of thing, replete with definitive blah blah, and damning enough specifics about The End of Solidarity. It is a phenomenon coupled with a nonstop ringing of alarm pheromones and a simultaneous disappearance of what bee people call colony-specific odor, which helps winged wonders distinguish between hive members and intruders. Basically, even the best of the Left these days are only keeping… busy as bees. With…activity for the sake of distraction.

We are now, sadly, deep into the Age of Vulture Bees, stingless creatures which feed on rotted carrion. Not a damned soul is acting on either Jensen’s Endgame or Beckett’s Endgame. Or standing still in respect. There’s no more than buzz.

The possible passing of bees, if addressed at all, is grieved primarily in economic terms. In connection with carnations, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. There isn’t an ounce of feeling among concerned (but calloused) citizens for the relationship between beeswax and the mysteries of Fayum mummy portraits, Philippine kutiyapi, didgeridoo mouthpieces or the walls of Lascaux. Why would there be? Bees, to most, are merely just another species that…just might have to go the way of the Great Auk.

There is no real mystery for the post-modern mind. Zero sacred in the…phew.

I do have an answer.

The bees I am focused on possess five eyes. The three ocelli are simple eyes that discern light intensity, while each of the two compound eyes contains about 6,900 facets and is well suited to detecting movement. In fact, honeybees can detect movements that are separated by 1/300th of a second. Humans can only detect movement that is separated by 1/50th of a second. Were a bee to enter a cinema, it would be able to differentiate each individual movie frame being projected!

I am leaving the toxic hive. You may find my body elsewhere, but do not search for me. And I will not look (or see) for you.

Please. Best me, rest in peace. Bless me, let me be…honey.

Richard Oxman, rmoxman@yahoo.com, looks to the Left and Right, and notes lack of vision, and virtually zero follow-up to imaginative offers of help. People acting locally seem commited to only thinking globally. Since, theoretically, the contents of a single ounce of honey can provide one bee with enough energy to fly around the world, he has departed with Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown. …and will move on from there.