Bees, Science, and Sadness • by Nancy Holmes 1

Hamilton Arts & Letters A large flowering plum tree stands in the centre of my front yard. In April, this tree is one of the most gorgeous beings on the planet – it is an explosion of blossoms, a sun-shot globe of scented pink. This April, when the sun was unseasonably warm and the tree was at its peak of gorgeous, I stood and just looked at it, blissfully. Blissfully, I say, but like many people these days, I felt a twinge of climate change anxiety. A summer’s day in early April is an odd weather event. I had just read that March 2016 had been the 11th straight month to reach highest mean monthly temperatures in recorded history, and April was not letting up. However, my unease was momentarily forgotten when I noticed that the entire plum tree was thrumming with bees.    [  >>>>>  FORWARD ]     [Distillate © HA&L + Nancy Holmes {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]