Payoff

Yellow-faced Bumblebee

She's back! For at least 12 years, I haven't seen, smelled or heard a single bumblebee in the yard. Other varieties of bees, yes, but nary a bumbler.

In the past few years though, I've been working my little trowel to the bone, adding pollinator-friendly plants and always hoping that some of my new neighbors would be in the bumblebee family. And credit where credit is due - at the same time that I was adding new and enticing food sources, my neighbor ripped out a "food desert" of juniper bushes and replaced them with California natives. Her choices have also certainly helped in this effort.

Now I am very aware that there are other, seemingly bigger health and social issues at play right now. I am simply trying to find a small bit of solace where I can, even if she only weighs less than a tenth of a gram. As Thor Hanson points out in his book, Buzz: the Nature and Necessity of Bees, the world can live without humans; unfortunately, it will have a very hard time without bees.