The Bee Problem

I was woken early one morning by a hammering on my back door. I quickly dressed and made my way downstairs, to find Alun in an agitated mood.

 

“It’s the bees, Jed,” Alun said, “They’re dying out.”

 

“Dying out?”

 

“Yes Jed, the mainland farmers are spending a fortune on bee-killing pesticides. There’s hardly any bees left.”

 

“Are you sure?” I said, it seemed unlikely. “Why would farmers kill bees, they’re not a pest, just the opposite, they pollinate some of the most important mainland crops. If bees are wiped out the mainland would starve.”

 

“These are mainland farmers, Jed, they get paid a fortune for any damaged crops. If they can wipe out the bees they won’t be able to grow anything – they’d get billions of mainland pounds in compensation without any of the cost and inconvenience of having to grow or sell anything.”

 

“Even so,” I said, “We’re just one little island, we’re hardly going to be able to save a species on our own." Our dodo farm was a complete disaster. And the attempt to breed a new generation of T-Rexes ended in sheer carnage (see the Jurassic Problem).

 

“We can at least try Jed. And you’re forgetting, regardless of our success, raising bees is a win-win scenario.”

 

“You mean even if we don’t save the species, we still get honey and pollenated plants.”

 

“No Jed, I was thinking of the satisfaction we’d have telling mainlanders that we were saving bees while they were killing them.” 

 

Alun’s main motivation in life is to take the moral highground over mainlanders. Which is why Alun searched the internet until he found the perfect bee, a rare French variety, which he chose because their frenchness would annoy mainlanders.  He ordered a hive, a bee-keeper’s hat and a colony of the french bees and began bee-keeping.

 

All went well for several months, Alun brought me the occasional jar of home-made honey and  the bees were seemingly busy-busy with the whole pollination business, flowers thrived and the island was generally abuzz.

 

However, one morning I was woken early by a hammering on my back door. It was Alun, in an agitated state.

 

“It’s my bees, Jed,” he said, “They’re lacking their natural wanderlust and mired in an overwhelming despond.”

 

“Are you sure?” I said, it seemed unlikely. “Surely bees don’t get depressed, they just buzz around collecting pollen.”

 

“That’s typical, Jed, just because they’re small and buzzy you assume they don’t feel the same emotions as you. If you paid proper attention to them you’d understand that they were in a funk of ennui, and there’s nothing worse than a bee in a funk of ennui.”

 

“But why would bees be depressed?”

 

“I don’t know, Jed, we’ll have to ask them.”

 

I grabbed my coat and hat and we made our way over to the hives.

 

“Look at them Jed, completely lacking wanderlust.”

 

The bees did look less than 100% buzzing.

 

As Alun had suggested, I asked them how they were feeling.

 

“Bonjour toute le monde,” I said. “Comment allez vous?”

 

The bees said nothing, the only noise was a confused buzzing.

 

“What are you doing, Jed?” Alun said.

 

“I’m talking to the bees. They’re French, remember.”

 

“Yes, but they’re also bees. They communicate by wriggling their bottoms.”

 

“Well, sorry,” I said, “But I don’t speak bee. Can you do any better?”

 

“Of course, I can, Jed,” he said. “I speak fluently.” So saying, he dropped his trousers and started wriggling his bare arse at the hives.

 

I’d forgotten that for a brief period in his childhood Alun was raised by bees.

 

“Well,” I said, after what seemed a lifetime of bare-arsed-wriggling. “What’s with the bee ennui?”

 

They’re bored, Jed,” Alun said.

 

“Bored. But why? Happy Island is a great place to live. We have some of the most bee-friendly plants in the world, we don’t use any pesticides and there aren’t any idiotic mainlanders swatting them because they think they’re wasps.”

 

“Oh, in terms of food and general health and safety, Happy Island is perfect for bees, Jed, there’s no disputing that. But there’s more to life than a good diet and a safe environ, there’s culture, music, art.”

 

“The bees are depressed because there isn’t any art?”

 

“Not just art, there’s no culture, no social life.”

 

“You never complain, and there’s a lot less people on the island than there are bees.”

 

“I’m not a bee Jed. Bees are social animals.”  

 

“But what can we do? We can hardly become a thriving city of culture just to please the bees.”

 

“They need entertainment Jed. We should put on a little show.”

 

I could hardly turn down the offer of a little show. Happy Island never gets any visitors, and because we rarely leave the island ourselves, our opportunities to perform are limited.

 

I started the little show with a banjulele solo, which we followed with our world-renowned pie-in-the-face comedy routine, then Alun treated the bees to a lecture on the history of the Happy Island coalmine.

 

However, in spite of all these entertainments, the bees were still melancholic and morose.  Were the Happy Island bees destined to be the most miserable of their species due to the impoverished cultural environ?

 

I’m pleased to say that the answer is ‘No’, for the very next morning I was woken early by Alun hammering excitedly on my back door.

 

“Bees shall overcome, Jed,” Alun said.

 

“What?”

 

“Bees shall overcome. I’ve found a way to remove the fog of ennui from our bees. They’re going to campaign against the mainland government and get the Minister for Overuse of Pesticides to stop paying farmers to kill bees.”

 

“But how? Bees can hardly write letters to ministers.”

 

“Yes they can, Jed,” Alun said. “I spent yesterday teaching the bees to write and now they’re fully engaged in anti-pesticide protest.”

 

“You taught an entire hive of bees to write in the mainland language in just one day?”

 

“Yes, Jed, they’re bees, they’re not stupid like humans, and they really work at things.”

 

Amazingly, it was true. When I visited the hive, the bees were back to their buzzing, busy selves. They were writing letters, setting up e-petitions and some of the bees were even working on a Bees Shall Overcome website.

 

The Bees Shall Overcome campaign filled them with purpose. They set up branches of the bee shall overcome movement on all the other islands on the archipelago and bombarded the mainland newspapers with emails.

 

It looked as if the bees were finally happy and here to stay.

 

However, I was woken early one morning by Alun, hammering on my door in an agitated manner.

 

“It’s the bees, Jed,” he said, “They’ve all gone.”

 

“But I thought they’d lost their ennui, they were enlivened by the Bees Shall Overcome.

 

“Exactly Jed, that’s why they’ve gone. They’ve decided to upgrade their campaign to direct action, they’ve flown off to the mainland to smear honey all over the houses of parliament, then they’re going to keep the Minister for Overuse of Pesticides awake all night by buzzing in her ear. With any luck, they’ll drive her completely mad through lack of sleep that she’ll change her policy.”