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I guess we have been in society-wide quarantine lockdown for an entire year (at least here in New York City). The grim anniversary at least provides the opportunity to show you the artwork which I made during the spring of 2020 as nature burst into glorious life while humankind cowered at home in the shadow of the crowned plague.
I like to draw in little 3.5 inch by 5.5 inch moleskine sketchbooks (which i fill up pretty regularly). Last spring, due to an ordering error, I purchased a Japanese album (which folds out into one long accordion strip of paper) instead of my usual folio book. Since the pandemic left me stuck in my little Brooklyn garden, I began drawing a Coronavirus journey along a continuous garden path running from my backyard, through the stricken city, to the cemetery and then out to the sea. As spring turned into summer I rode my bike over to Greenwood to work on it. Usually works of this sort are destroyed by giant ink blots, spills, or catastrophic drawing failures (since I drew this freehand with a Hiro Leonardt 41 steel nib), and although there are lots of flaws (sigh), none of them destroyed the drawing outright.
as you can see, the one factor which made the isolation and anxiety of the coronavirus pandemic bearable to me was the one thing which makes existence bearable–the unlimited power of imagination to go anywhere and make anything happen! Thus we see a Byzantine/Gothic Brooklyn as suited to the plague of Justinian as to Covid 19.
I effectively finished the drawing in June, but I kept frittering at the edges. Plus there was an empty space in the path beneath the fountain (just before the musical garden filled with lyrebirds, siamangs, singing sphinxes, and aulos players). That space stayed blank until November, when I realized that the blank spot in the middle was where the vaccine belonged (you can see it there now just below the fountain).
Unfortunately, I am a better draftsman than a photographer, and it is hard to make out the small details of the little garden plants and bugs which were my original inspiration. Anyway, hopefully you can click on the panels and look at the musicians (C-minor), the plague doctor, the manticore, and the covid party filled with Bushwick Bohemians and sinners! If not, let me know and we will see if I can repost the drawing somehow. Maybe I will post some of the details later on anyway, since the virus pathway is filled with serpents, bats, dark gods, pigeons, bees, trees, and flounder (and other ferrebeekeeper subjects which are always close to my heart).
Speaking of things close to my heart, thanks again for reading this and for being here with me (at least in my writings and thoughts if not in the real world). Dear Reader, you are the absolute best. If the Fates are willing, we are nearing the end of this horrid covid chapter (just as the dark path from the drawing ultimately runs out into the great ocean and vanishes in the waves). I am sorry it took so long to post this little book, but it seems appropriate somehow. As always, let me know what you think, and for my part I will think about what delights to put in the spring album for 2021!
Health and peace to you and your loved ones! We are nearly through this!
Every year, as a final post, Ferrebeekeeper publishes obituaries detailing the important losses of the year. But what do we do for this disastrous pandemic year when the world lost so many people from all walks of life (and when Americans nearly lost our democracy to a larcenous conman and his enablers)? How do we characterize the human cost of the plague, strife, ecological degradation, and economic mayhem of this past revolution around the sun?
I thought about including tables of numbers or little biographies, but I decided instead that the best answer is to put up this baroque pen and ink drawing which I made to represent the year and its struggles. You can see the battle for political power which has rocked the nation and the world mirrored in the left and right puppeteers, however, the dueling grandees are less important than the larger tableau of molecular and cellular changes which are affecting the whole ecosphere. I imagine the great skeletal reptile at the bottom as the fossil fuel industry (although it might be the underworld belching up the fires of hell). The cornucopia represents the dark fruits of our endeavors (which we do everything to obtain, yet which always seem to float tantalizingly out of reach). A lovely bat flits around the upper right corner to illustrate the sad vector through which the virus jumped to humankind…but also as a tribute to the dreadful time bats are having.
Studded throughout the image are virus caplets… and grave after grave after grave. It was a dark year and we will be thinking about what went wrong for a long time (provided, of course, that things don’t go more and more wrong in subsequent years, which would certainly recontextualize 2020 in the very worst way possible–as a good year!).
We are not out the woods yet, but the vaccine is on its way (my grandpa just got his first shot). We have to make it through this dark winter first though. Then, in the new year we can start to mourn the dead appropriately. We can best memorialize them by fixing some of the problems which brought us to this unhappy point in time. We can truly have a happy new year by starting to work on the even larger problems which we know to be immediately in the road ahead of us.
We will talk about it all more soon. In the mean time, accept my condolences for any losses or setbacks. Be safe and vigilant and have a Happy New Year!
We have had an awful lot of politics around here this autumn. How about today we just concentrate solely on autumn? As I often mention, there is a Kwanzan cherry tree in my back yard in Brooklyn. It is a beautiful tree (although neither my photographs, artworks, nor my essays have ever fully captured its ineffable loveliness).
The cherry tree is most famous for how it looks in spring, when it resembles a radiant pink cloud descended from paradise, yet it is always gorgeous–even in winter when its bare limbs look like Chinese seal calligraphy. Indeed in autumn it glows a brilliant bright yellow which is nearly as lovely as the soft pink of spring.
Alas, as always, my photos do the tree a terrible injustice (also, hopefully you are not put off by the ornamental bacteriophages which I hung up back in summer to contextualize our current plight). I wish you could see it in the real world. Looking at its graceful, winsome branches has kept me sane during this long sojourn in the city (I don’t think I have left since the beginning of last December!) and I wish I could share the beauty with you. After all, as pretty as the tree is in its golden autumn finery, this yellow cloak is soon to fall and the cherry tree will be bare through the gloom, mist, darkness, and chill of winter. How are we ever going to make it back back to the blossoms this pestilent year?
Like everything else in the year of our Lord 2020, the American election of 2020 was an ugly mess. As I write this, it looks like Joe Biden will probably manage to scratch out a meager victory, however any hope he had of accomplishing anything as president is already comprehensively and utterly ruined. Mitch McConnell’s icy skeletal grip upon the Senate remains, and McConnell will not allow any legislation that would benefit any non-billionaire to ever pass that ghastly house. There will be no new fiscal stimulus, or, if there is, it will be a miserable pretense which really only helps billionaires. There will be no improved medical care system. Indeed, the Supreme Court is almost certain to strike down the ACA in the immediate future, driving tens of millions of citizens out of medical care and into bankruptcy (to say nothing of what those charlatans in robes will do to reproductive rights or gun control rules). The next four years will feature no technological innovations, discoveries, or breakthroughs of any significance (Republicans and their corporate overlords have no interest in such things when the current status quo serves their purposes just fine). There will be no infrastructure deal to rebuild our crumbling nation. Americans will become poorer, sicker, and face greater day-to-day insecurity. The coronavirus will continue to kill us off and keep us separated from each other for the next several years until it burns out on its own (or do you envision folks from Kansas rushing to follow President Biden’s health initiatives?) Our standing in the world will keep on plummeting, as our autocratic foes coerce lesser nations into their thrall. Worst of all, environmental devastation will continue at a breakneck pace. Soon most ecosystems will be irrecoverably degraded and most wild lifeforms will be impossibly rare or outright extinct.
So…was the election a complete disaster? It was not! Getting rid of Donald Trump was the most important thing, and, unless he manages some Robert-Mugabe-style dark contrivance in the immediate future, he will be mercifully gone within a few looooooooong months. I am not looking forward to the cash grabs, parade of pardons, and graceless & dangerous transfer of power which we will witness during those months. However Donald Trump was the biggest threat to representative government in modern U.S history, and staving off such a threat is not nothing!. The fact that 48% of the electorate joyously voted for a white supremacist con man who has looted & preened while a quarter of a million Americans died is discouraging. Yet with Trump out of the picture (in exile, prison, or the grave) his cult of personality will recede and we will be able to look to the future and solve some of the problems which are destroying us.
Except will we really?
I did not write that first paragraph for no reason. I believe everything I said will come to pass. It is the future which Mitch McConnell is building even as I write this. And, as soon as we (non-billionaires) are being crushed beneath it, he will blame it all on Joe Biden. “Government is the problem” McConnell (or his mouthpieces) will say. Just privatize everything and let business cartels write their own rules and there will be no problem! Americans are already figuratively corporate slaves. The terrible years to come are all about making us into literal slaves.
We need to prepare for this as soon as possible. Harden your heart and stiffen your upper lip. Things in America are about to get much worse than they have been for the last 4 years. This will be entirely the fault of the Republicans. It is not even a mistake or miscalculation. It is their plan! Only by carefully explaining this again and again and again will we be able to help voters understand where their misery is truly coming from. Right now voters seem to think it is liberal snowflakes raiding their bank accounts, raising their insurance premiums, and threatening their social security. Perhaps if we can help voters understand who the true villains are (McConnell and his cronies!) we can escape some of the harm which is about to cascade down on us.
It has taken me about 24 hours to stop quivering in rage over that putrid presidential debate last night. I don’t particularly want to think about it or write about it. I strongly suspect that you don’t wish to read more about it either. Alas, engendering such feelings was the entire point of Donald Trump’s participation. He was not acting that way without reason: his grotesque performance revealed the secret to his power. Even if we desperately want to lie on the sofa, eat pastry, and watch Halloween cartoons, we need to instead talk about how Trump’s bad behavior gets him what he wants.
Imagine the election were a pie-baking contest. Biden reads revered cookbooks (& talks to master chefs). He peels peaches, greases pans, mixes brown sugar and white sugar, and creates a bunch of peach pies which are fine, edible pies. Maybe you prefer rhubarb pies or savory pies or whatever, but Biden’s pies are passable and could probably have won in past fairs. Donald Trump however doesn’t open book or switch on an oven. He goes out to the cow pasture and collects heaping bushel barrels filled with BULLSHIT. Then he comes to the county fair where all of the hungry judges sit with their napkins around their necks and he throws the filth everywhere. “I brought cowpies to show how Biden’s ideas are crappy!” he says as he hurls ordure onto everything. Biden’s pies are ruined. So is everyone’s appetite. So is the very idea of pie. After experiencing such a thing (and we have all been experiencing 5 years of it) fair-goers might be excused for not wanting to judge pies, or eat pies, or go to the fair, or to even think about any of it. And thus Trump wins as his brownshirts, proudboys, and religious fanatics vote him to be the greatest master baker in American history.
That is what is going on, and even if you feel like puking and never hungering for pie…I mean democracy… again in your life you need to take a deep breath and sit back down at the judging table.
A disturbing refrain which I hear all of the time these days is “Everybody else is equally bad.” Don’t fall for this poisonous lie! That is Trump’s message which lies at the center of his strategy to keep voters at home. It is why he is ruining all of the pies. If all voters show up to vote, Trump will lose in a historical landslide. Therefore he must make democracy itself look bad and call the validity of the entire process into question. Although he is a undisciplined dullard (or maybe because he is an undisciplined dullard), Trump has an unparalleled ability to make everything seem so terrible that it doesn’t seem like participating is worth the bother. In 2016 he steamrolled the Republican party and won the election not by looking good or competent, but by drowning out everyone else’s messages with his provocative and attention-seeking behavior. Voters become grossed out by such behavior and give up on voting. This allows Trump and his enablers to make even more things seem pointless or dangerous and the evil cycle perpetuates itself. Joe Biden had to actually synthesize complicated policy ideas and memorize evidence and do hard work. All so Donald Trump can spit on it as voters squirm and say “I don’t want any part of this: all politicians are equally bad.”
Ever since he won the democratic nomination, Biden has had my vote, but as he goes through this gauntlet with this ghastly bully he is winning my respect and admiration as well. If Biden can deal with a challenge like last night’s, he can deal with other crises and disasters which require steely nerves. Although Biden did not look as good as if he were serving delicious peach pie to grinning gourmets, he did not get steamrolled. He had to get down in the mud with the bully and thus his larger (and finer) points about healthcare, foreign policy, were destroyed by Trump’s distractions. Biden’s nice pies were ruined. He spent all of that time in the kitchen for nothing…last night. But we cannot let a few distasteful episodes make us lose our appetite for true representative government. As long as the kitchen is still standing, we can clean it up and get back to baking wonderful pies for the good of everyone. Keep a strong stomach and a clear head. Everyone is not equally bad. That is what villains say so that you will lose sight of their misdeeds.
If you don’t freak out we can end this national nightmare and, and…come to think of it, I love peach pie! I am going to go make some myself, as soon as I write a check to the Biden campaign.
The Republican Convention of 1880
In ages past, national political conventions lay at the heart of how American political parties selected candidates. This made for strange and fascinating stories, such as the tale of the Republican convention of 1880 when the delegates met in gilded age Chicago and cast their ballots 36 times before finally settling on a presidential candidate, James Garfield, who wasn’t even running for the presidency! Yet, during the progressive era, the right to select candidates was wrestled out of the hands of shadowy party grandees and handed over to rank-and-file party voters. In turn, the political conventions stopped being real political contests and became vast kabuki-style infomercials (albeit meaningful ones, where the parties try out new messages and launch the careers of aspirant national leaders). For viewers at home, the net result of all of this was dreadful tv! All of the political conventions I watched during the eighties, nineties, aughts, and teens were turgid set-pieces with lots of talking heads shouting soundbites to enormous halls filled with screaming followers. It makes my head hurt to just think about these things, and I am sure if you start reminiscing about Joe Paterno, “swiftboating,” Gary Hart, Clint Eastwood talking to a chair, the Astros being thrown out of their own stadium (snicker), Governor Ann Richards, etc…etc…ad nauseum, you too will start to be overcome by despair at the benighted human condition.
This year, however, the Covid-19 global pandemic has forced some much needed changes on America’s worn-out political conventions! What I have seen so far from the Republican convention has not been encouraging (unless you are a cannibal lizard person or a devout believer in the same), but last week’s Democratic convention had a wholesome charm which was a tonic in this fragmented and frightened era. Structural differences in the two parties generally do not favor the Democratic convention. Because of their big tent , it is easy for endless smaller issues to drag the event in too many directions to easily comprehend a larger theme. This year though, all individual grievances were subsumed into an overarching theme of grief and of how the nation can overcome and allay the disasters and follies of the past few years. This involved hearing from more actual workaday Americans than in any convention I can recall. There were small farmers talking about losing their livelihoods, children mourning their plague-stricken parents, and victims of gun violence. George Floyd’s brother spoke with steady eloquence about his dead brother’s gentle spirit.
There were also pointless celebrities like the annoying Julia Louis-Dreyfus Hall, but there is no need to dwell on them. Celebrities have ruined enough things in America. If we can drive them away from politics, it will be a huge relief (although I doubt it will happen).
The best part of the convention, unexpectedly, was the role call of delegates pledging their votes to the candidates. This involved little clips of lots of local figures and local, um, locations, and it was a delight to see so much of the country and its inhabitants for a change (as opposed to the red, white, & blue bunting, confetti, makeup and lies which are the fabric of most conventions).
Among the 2020 delegates, Khizr Khan was back–older and with one drooping eye–but with the same fierce pride in the United States of America, and radiating the same righteous anger at those who would threaten or abuse our beloved Constitution.
Also compelling was the Rhode Island delegation. There was a standard leader of some sort pledging his support to Biden, but next to him was a masked calamari chef! The culinary ninja just stood there silently with a huge glistening tray of fried squid. His physical presence radiated power, and his golden brown seafood banquet certainly won my heart (did you know Rhode island was famous for squid?) Ferrebeekeeper has fantasized about mollusks being the highlight of a political convention, but I never thought it would really happen…
I am not sure if the convention was satisfying to hardcore political junkies. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and the Obamas all made fine presentations (Bernie talked to us from the woodshed where he maybe wants to take some obtuse Americans), however none of these speeches were really about the granular details of policy or political competition. That is fine with me. I think the Democrats were wise to try to make emotional inroads into the unsettled hearts of Americans who are seeking a better life for themselves and their family. We already know that Biden and his allies have ample experience of public policy and legislating. We need to see that they care about the whole nation (as opposed to one particular group).
At the end of the event, Joe Biden gave his best speech so far: a homespun but competent and compelling oration which made him seem like what he is: a lifelong public servant who cares about Americans of all sorts. He said he was willing to work with opponents to get things done for the nation as a whole. I believed him. There was no balloon drop, but even the awkward final moment of the convention had a certain earnest charm: Biden and Harris clearly wanted to hug each other, but were constrained by social distancing guidelines. Instead of embracing and mingling with their families, they put on masks and stood there awkwardly before heading out into the parking lot to watch some fireworks. We all know exactly how they feel.
All of which is to say, I liked the Democratic Convention more than any convention I have seen so far. Although it did not address lots of points of policy with exacting detail, it did not need to. There is time for such things during the campaign, and anyway, let’s face it, the fact that Joe Biden will not flout the law or sell out our national interest to Vladimir Putin or some murderous Saudi Prince has already won my vote (although I believe there are many actual policy choices which Biden pursues which will be beneficial to all Americans). Plus he will actually show up and do the job! Although there were plenty of less-than-polished moments in terms of the new format, the convention radiated decency, competence, and compassion. Obviously we will talk more about the election this autumn, but the Democratic Convention has already surpassed my expectations. It made me feel better. When was the last time you could say that about a political event?
Kindly accept my sincere apologies for not writing any posts last week! It is late August, the last moment of proximate calm before the big election, and it seemed like an ideal moment to take some summer vacation (also I have had to keep on trucking to the office this whole time, so I needed some downtime).
Anyway, to get back to the affairs of the world, the 2020 United States presidential election is indeed coming up! Unfortunately I find it completely enervating to write about the current occupant of the White House. Donald Trump is a criminal, a con-artist, and a would-be-dictator. Despite how eagerly he is embraced by Jerry Falwell Jr. and evangelical leaders of such ilk, Trump is no Christian at all: Trump’s true master is not Jesus but Vladimir Putin. If you doubt it, just compare Trump’s (nonexistent) deference to Jesus to his (supine) deference to Putin. In New York it is widely speculated that the only way Donald Trump was able to borrow money after multiple high-profile bankruptcies was because the Russian mafia (which is, again, to say Vladimir Putin) backed exorbitant loans to Trump so that he would help them launder money through his crooked real estate empire. So far Trump has successfully fought off all of the (somewhat feeble) attempts by investigators to get to the bottom of his financial relations with Russia, but the truth will eventually come out someday. Since even the most dim Americans would probably (?) object somewhat to an American president who openly works for Russia only, Trump has confused the issue by attacking the concept that anything at all is knowable in any way. Attacking knowledge itself (!) has had more severe ramifications than usual in this time of pestilence (although all of the other terrible harms which Trump has done the nation will become more obvious in time). All of which is to say nothing of Trump’s self-evident tyranny, cruelty, idiocy, sexism, mendacity, anti-environmentalism, racism, cronyism, nepotism, cowardly personal behavior, and unpleasant personal appearance.
And here is another problem: today I had meant to write about the Democratic National Convention (which was much more earnest, heartfelt, and effective than I had imagined it would be), however outrage over Trump has trumped my message of support for Biden. Trump derangement syndrome is not a real thing (there is no effective way for Americans of conscience to accept or even comprehend this corrupt oaf is indeed in the nation’s highest office where he is happily destroying everyone’s future), yet just beginning to look at Trump’s corruption drowns out all other themes! It is yet another terrible emotional trap of these Trumpian times. My old anti-Trump posts were more thoughtful than today’s self defeating screed because everything hadn’t become Trump all of the time!
I promise I will write about the Democratic convention tomorrow. It was an improvement on old-fashioned political conventions and I have a feeling we will be seeing more things like it, (even in a blessed Covid-free future). In the mean time, perhaps it is necessary to begin coverage of election 2020 by denouncing the brazen & outlandish criminal who today sits at the Resolute desk. Joe Biden can and must beat him (otherwise the nation is going to break and a lot of us are headed off to concentration camps). Tomorrow we will deliberately look away from the Walpurgisnacht rituals currently happening in Charlotte and talk about why a Biden/Harris victory will be a good thing even if we omit Donald Trump from the picture entirely. Then we will get to work omitting Trump from the picture entirely.
After the horrible election of 2016, a friend of mine who is more sanguine about life than I (and more effective at predicting what markets will do) opined that we don’t have to worry about Trump and the Republicans. “Trump is like the pied piper leading Republicans into a crack in the mountain” my friend said. “The fact that he won, merely means that they are truly following him all the way into the unseelie darkness before the crack slams shut and vanishes.”
And yet I wonder if Trump hasn’t already taken all of us into the darkness already. The Democratic convention gave me a moment of hope that there are still some people and things which won’t be destroyed by Trump’s final act. We will talk about it tomorrow.
What with all of the excitement in the world, it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture…and of good things which are still happening during these troubled times. This morning at 7:50 a.m. EDT, NASA launched an Atlas V-541 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 41. On board the rocket is a Martian lander containing the most sophisticated Martian rover yet “Perseverance” along with its robotic helicopter sidekick “Ingenuity.”
Artist’s Conception of Perseverance and Ingenuity on Mars
If the mission continues to go according to plan, the lander will reach Mars in February 2021. Coincidentally, Mars will be crowded that month, since a Chinese orbiter & lander, and a UAE orbiter are also slated to arrive. After much trial-and-error, I have faith in NASA’s sky crane landing system but it will be most interesting to see if the Chinese rover can “stick the landing”or if it is eaten by the ghosts of Mars (I hope not: humankind needs the Chinese data too, and NASA needs some competition to keep the creative juices and the congressional funding flowing).
The ultimate destination of the Mars 2020 mission is the Jezero Crater, a nearly circular crater 49 km (30 miles) in diameter. The ancient crater is now partially filled with sediments–including a fan delta of ancient clays. It is believed that if evidence of ancient life is to be found anywhere on Mars this is as likely a place as any to discover the ancient fossils.
Jezero Crater
Perseverance has onboard a 4.8 kilograms (11 lb) pellet of plutonium dioxide which will provide the vehicle (and the miniature helicopter) with abundant energy for traveling, communicating with orbiters/Earth, assaying rocks, and operating a core drill for gathering geological samples of ancient Martian rock. Additionally the rover will conduct material experiments concerning the potential toxicity of Martian dust and the production of pure oxygen from Martian atmospheric CO2. Perhaps most excitingly, the rover will also carefully organize and cache the precious samples it gathers in preparation for a future retrieval mission. Such a mission would involve landing, building and launching a Mars ascent vehicle from the Martian surface up to our proposed next generation Mars orbiter which would then load the samples on am Earthbound craft. So the Mars 2020 mission is a tremendous step towards discovering whether life ever gained a toehold on Mars AND towards building next-generation space faring capabilities (for the dull and incurious earthcentric crowd that always decries space exploration–as though Earth is located somewhere other than space!– it should be noted that such engineering breakthroughs generally confer military, technological, and economic supremacy here).
Also, special thanks to our brilliant Norwegian, Spanish, French, and Italian friends!
So best wishes for the entire armada which has left our planet this month headed for Mars, but particular good wishes to Perseverance and Ingenuity! Let’s hope we can discover some perveverance here to make it all the way to February 2021 (right now that sounds like it might as well be some HG Wells date in the impossible future).
Wow! It seems like just a few days ago I was talking about Ferrebeekeeper’s 10th anniversary, but I guess that was actually back at the beginning of April… back in the world before the quarantine. Anyway, in that long-ago post, I mentioned that Ferrebeekeeper’s 2000th blog entry is coming up (if you can believe it) and we would celebrate with some special posts, pageantry, and little treats. Boy I really failed to follow up on that, and now today’s post is already our 1999th…
But there is still plenty of time for a Ferrebeekeeper jamboree (“jamboreekeeper”?)! Let’s start the festivities today with a special gift for you: a free flounder PDF for coloring:
2020 Coloring Flounder with Invaders
If you don’t feel like downloading the PDF, there is the black and white drawing right up at the top of today’s post. It features a timely flounder for 2020–a big invader flounder with dead black eyes and a pitted lifeless surface of desiccated craters and impact marks. Upon the flounder are alien shock troops…or maybe cyborgs? (…or maybe they are more familiar political militia). Space seeds and mysterious cardioids float down from the night sky onto a writhing landscape of burning Gothic cloisters, ruined mechanized battle equipment, and little refugees (and wriggling, beached flatfish of course ).
In some ways, this chaotic picture is not what I wanted for a celebration (where is the lavish garden party flatfish PDF already?), but in other deeper ways it is perfect for this moment of international floundering. Anyhow, you didn’t really want to color more ribbons, jewels, and roses did you? Well maybe you actually don’t want to color at all, but if you do break out your pencils and crayons, send me a jpeg of your efforts at wayneferrebee@gmail.com and we will post a little disaster gallery! And, as always, keep tuning in! There is more excitement for our big MM celebration…or there will be, as soon as I dream it up…
Ok…here is one more bee story. The blue calamintha bee (Osmia calaminthae) is an ultra-specialized bee which is found only upon a particular ridge of hills in Central Florida. Or that is the way that things used to be: the shiny metallic blue bee has not been spotted since 2016 and it was presumed extinct. Above is a sad picture of a museum specimen. The bee’s trademark shiny blueness is fading because of, you know, impalement and death and extinction and stuff (although, in fairness, it seems like the bee’s exoskeleton is blue, but its fuzz is grayish white).
But wait! This story turns out not to be over after all. On March 9th, a researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Chase Kimmel, discovered a living blue calamintha bee. The busy little insect was rubbing its furry head on Ashe’s calamint flower in order to collect the pollen. Since then, additional blue bees have been spotted, so the species is hanging on. The first bee was not a Martian manhunter style “last-of-its-kind” survivor.
Unfortunately, scientists and ecologists have not been able to further study the insects due to troubles in the human world…or maybe that is fortunate. Perhaps the last blue calamintha bees just need some privacy and human free bee time to rebuild the shattered kernel of their population. Let’s wish them well, and I will follow up with more information as it becomes available.
ferrebeekeeper 