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Index of Subjects This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --Boundary_(ID_wZdeWLJyebb7gq/WmIuGYw) Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT The ultimate disappearance of honeybees and honey was imagined several years ago in a poem by Irish poet Matthew Sweeney, published at first in The Times (London), July 13, 2001, and available on-line from them. It imagines a sad future when honey will be replaced by pseudo-honey. A Dream of Honey by Matthew Sweeney I dreamed that bees were extinct, had been for decades, and honey was a fabled memory, except for jars hoarded by ancient, wealthy gourmets. Honey was still on the shelves, of course - that's what they'd named the sweet concoction chemists had arrived at, and it sold well, not just to those who knew no better, and the day was coming fast when no one alive would be able to taste the difference. Then one Friday morning in Riga a peasant woman arrived by horse and cart at the old Zeppelin Hangars market and set up her stall with jars of honey flavoured by the various flowers. Around her sellers of the new honey gawped, then sniffed as she screwed the lids off, then glared as her jars were snapped up in minutes, and she climbed on her cart again and let the horse take her away. In the dream, e-mails sped everywhere about this resurrection of honey, and supermarket-suppliers scoured Latvia, knocking on every door, sending helicopters low over houses, looking for beehives, but after a month they gave it up, and the woman never appeared again though rumours of her honey-selling came over the border from Russia and continued beyond the dream ----- Original Message ----- From: Matthew Baker To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 3:49 PM Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Honey Bees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder this is happening all over north america. i have been talking to farmers here in southern california, and they either have no idea what is happening, or suspect some kind of virus. i have read that there is a japanese mite that is spreading across the continent, and it's either the mite that is killing the bees, or a virus on the mite that is killing the bees. there are travelling bee colonies that are being hired to polinate crops, and they --Boundary_(ID_wZdeWLJyebb7gq/WmIuGYw) Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16441" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV> <P class=MsoNormal style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>The ultimate disappearance of honeybees and honey was imagined several years ago in a poem by Irish poet Matthew Sweeney, published at first in The Times (London), July 13, 2001, and available on-line from them. It imagines a sad future when honey will be replaced by pseudo-honey.</FONT></SPAN><FONT face=Times><SPAN> </SPAN><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span> </FONT></SPAN></FONT></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times color=#666666></FONT><?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times></FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>A Dream of Honey</FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times> by Matthew Sweeney</FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times></FONT></SPAN> </P> <P class=MsoNormal style="mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>I dreamed that bees were extinct,</FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>had been for decades, and honey</FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>was a fabled memory, except for jars</FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>hoarded by ancient, wealthy gourmets.</FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times> </FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>Honey was still on the shelves, of course -</FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>that's what they'd named the sweet concoction</FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>chemists had arrived at, and it sold well,</FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times>not just to those who knew no better,</FONT><O:P></O:P></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 12pt; mso-pagination: none; mso-layout-grid-align: none"><SPAN><FONT class=Apple-style-span face=Times&