Bees and beetles

My wife has created some beautiful gardens.  People stop and gawk.  It has taken nine years of early mornings and “playing” in the rain.  Most summers she is so busy with other things that she misses the main event.  Right now almost everything is in full bloom, with spectacular bursts of color everywhere you look.

With these blossoms come bees and beetles.  The bees we love.  There are at least three sizes of Bumble Bee, small, medium and bombus maximus.  And there are Honey Bees, delightful little creatures filling up on pollen to take back home, wherever home is, to create perfect food.  The bees are a delight to watch and contemplate, as they populate our garden and pollinate the flowers, insuring blooms and blossoms for years to come.

Then there are the beetles.  Japanese Beetles to be precise.  This morning we killed close to a hundred of them on our rose bushes.  Beetles can devour a rose bush in a day, then move on to something else, decimating a garden in no time.  Without diligence we could loose our roses, then our daisies, then our Joe Pye Weed (upatorium purppureum) in just days.  Needless to say, we do not hold Japanese Beetles in the same high regard as we do Honey Bees.  One is a blessing and the other is a curse.

So in the garden of life, are you a bee or a beetle?  Do you help beautify the things around you, do you keep things alive, and produce something sweet.  Or do you simply devour everything in you path on your quest for self satisfaction.

Be a bee.

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