The World, It Turns Out, Is Not Ending

Things are happy in the insect world, if no where else. The bumblebees are insane this year, what with their buzzing and their nectar gathering. They are on every conceivable blossom, flower, puddle, water bucket and peanut butter sandwich to be found on the farm. They’re even on the salt lick.
Right when I was beginning to feel as though there was doom and gloom all around me, when all hope was lost and the dark ages again about to beset, there is this little bumbling glimmer of hope. Native insect populations are not only still extant, they are thriving! They’re everywhere, acid rain and deforestation and genetically modified foods not withstanding. Shopping centers are being built left and right, we’re about to run out of oil, a fifty year drought has just begun, but the bumblebees are dancing. I’ve counted as many as five in a single squash blossom.
Where they come from I don’t know, and why there are so many more this year than in any other year, I don’t know. It matters not. What matters is that the bumblebees do not read the papers. They’re supposed to be dieing but they are buzzing. They are flying. They are feeding. And if the experts are wrong about the demise of native pollinators, I, for one, can only conclude that they are wrong about everything else.