No more bees in my garden

 

It took me

A few months to realise

There were no more bees in my garden.

Winter took with it

A few chillies, a curry plant,

Did the bees disappear as well?

Alas, not winter, but a mite

A council scare perhaps, a pogrom

The nearby orchards in Bilpin, I read

Were bereft of bounties,

No plums, no apples or peaches

Just emptiness in green –

For the bees had disappeared

Decimated rather, in hives

A disaster,

To contain a disaster

Already lonely in this land

I felt lonelier

When I walked in my garden

Trimmed, and spring ready

But what spring is this?

The agapanthus are on time

But where is the buzz

Of the wings and the gold?

Was I better off without the news?

I crush the basil florets

And waft in its madness

Would they come,

Will they thrive

If I had more heady blooms?

Could I have done more

To save even one of them?

Just then,

A native bee appears, the only one

Blue banded in its show

And disappears just like that

Perhaps, that was nature’s way

To show me hope

Telling me, to keep the garden ready

Whenever the time comes…

6^th November, 2025

Inspired by real events - There are growing concerns in the Hills District and around Bilpin that populations of the introduced European honey bee have sharply declined, particularly from the destruction of hives to stem the spread of the Varroa destructor mite. With the mite seeming to have spread nonetheless, the tactic has changed to re-establishing the hives and working towards making the population resilient to the mite.

I will await – and write – when the bees come back again.