To be(e) or not to be(e)

 

I started a beekeeper course at the Landwirtschaftsschule in Imst (the agricultural school in Tyrol, Austria) and a new world opens up! The bees are incredibly interesting and inspiring! We don’t just learn a lot of them, but we can learn a lot from them.

 

 

 

Great is the following statement of the Austrian bee expert Karl von Frisch (Nobel Prize winner 1973):

“Der Bienenstaat gleicht einem Zauberbrunnen;

je mehr man daraus schöpft, desto reicher fließt er.”

 

Which translates in English:

Fliessender Zauberbrunnen

 

This statement about the bee’s life is in a certain way true for life in general; it is what you take and make out it yourself. We all desire a positive, rich, fulfilling well or life. This can be achieved by hard work, but a kind of magic is helpful too. What goes around, comes around.

 

 

The bees are fascinating, but unfortunately they are surrounded by worries and concerns these days as well. They are struggling to survive. Causes are natural diseases, urbanisation, intensive agriculture, pesticides, …

 

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” This quote is usually attributed to Albert Einstein. It is not sure he actually made this remark, but there is a great truth to it.

 

Bee

Beautiful, busy bee

A point that Einstein did make indeed, was: “Remove the bee from the earth and at the same stroke you remove at least one hundred thousand plants that will not survive.”

 

Darwin also reckoned: “The life of man would be made extremely difficult if the bee disappeared.”

 

The importance of the bees has been acknowleded since long. The documentary “More than Honey” (2013), shows facts and actualities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylK9cDjhNQY

 

The film points out, for example, that about one third of our food, depends on the bees. It also shows the consequences of the loss of these relevant insects in certain regions; it shows how in China people had to take over the work of the bees… Bee work is essential. And the documentary shows how “bees are business”.

 

The documentary “More than Honey” is worth the watch. It is not just about bees, but about nature in general and about human behaviour and our very existence:

 

To be(e) or not to be(e).