Greetings, Bee Friends:

In my neighborhood, on the outskirt of Shawnee (pp.30,000), about an hour
east from Oklahoma City on I-40, there are pockets of abandoned homesteads,
perhaps dating back to those days of Sooner Land Rush; the original
wood-frame homes are shriveled, sunken into the ground, a grey
half-collapsed lung that still houses and breathes the ghost smell of dirt
and sweat, of those hard-working folks of days gone-by.  Given another
decade or so, the signs of these old homesteads will disappear, too, for all
that stands now is choked by waist high weeds and a few stands of pears on
their what used to be front lawns.  People tell me how the old-timers used
to have an orchard around their homesteads, of course, to help feed hungry
mouths.  They also tell me that at one point even the pear crops were wiped
out by pathogens; homesteaders could not spray their way out as we could not
drill our gas-guzzling way of life out.  No matter.  Abandoned pears are the
only fruit-bearing trees still standing.  

One of my bee yards stands near one of these abandoned homesteads, a large
acreage of unimproved pasture.  Every spring, to my delight, my bees work
those snow-white pear blossoms, one of the early producers of pollen and
nectar, often coinciding with peaches, apples, apricots, and cherries; as a
result, all these abandoned pears fruit angry fists of stone-hard,
bell-shaped, native pears in the fall, transforming from hard green to
copper bronze as they ripe—granted that their flowers had not been zapped by
late April freeze, which is not uncommon in the plains since there is no
mountain range that will stop the last Canadian spoiler.  The size of an
adult fist, these hardy fruits are not as palatable as those store-bought
varieties of fruit; in fact, individually-wrapped Asian pears command the
price of gold while these American pears are sold cheap by the pound. 
Although they are not the fanciest pears, they are doable, delicious, and
juicy, and over the years, I learned to love them.  Once refrigerated,
nothing beats their 100% natural, mildly sweet, icy-cold juice.

How could these pears have survived—without anyone taking care of them?  I
often wonder.   I have never seen anyone weeding the underbrush or
brush-hogging, much less spraying even garlic/red-pepper water.  I also
realize that these survival stocks will not be able to feed the hungry
mouths globally since monocroping will inevitably usher in the pests.  At
the same time, I am painfully aware that there are now weeds and insects
that have *survived* on their own, like these pears, DDT and now even
Roundups—thanks to human science and ingenuity.  Can I name one pesticide,
the most recent, state-of-the-art insecticide, that will not create
resistance in the long run?  What should we do if insects become
GMO-resistant?  Do we know the long-term impacts of GMO on non-target
species, such as bees?  When will this treadmill slow down?  Worse, can I
name one aspect of our environment that our generation has improved ever
since we have taken it over?  Will it be even possible for us to hand it
down at least the way we have inherited it?  I am forced to be pessimistic
against my positive nature.  Obviously, to say it in a sweeping
generalization, we need to strike a balance between nature and science,
preferably more toward nature, so as not to disrupt what has taken over eons.

Of course, like many of us on this list, I do not have any answers, either.
 Frankly I do not even know who owns these lands where the pears are waiting
to be harvested as they often go unharvested as a worthless crop.  Already,
nearly half of the crops have fallen, littering the ground, and wasps, not
my bees, of all kinds were going at them.  Some have been bitten off by
deer; others are simply rotting fast.  By stealing some of these wonderful
pears still on the limbs, these golden tears planted by the invisible hands
of yesterday’s ghosts, I am brewing my first pear-wine this year to forget,
momentarily, how our existence is caught between eating and not being able
to eat, and nature and science, and a rock and a hard place, indeed. 
Cheers.  Welcome aboard on our planet dirt.

Yoon

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************