What the Bees Know

 

The Bees Are Not Just Dying — They’re Calling Us Back to Balance

The air is thick. Wet. Wrong.
It’s not just heat — it’s corn sweat. Yes, that’s real. Around here, the endless cornfields pump moisture into the already humid summer air, like a slow, boiling fog machine. My body doesn’t just dislike it — it registers it. Lymph backs up. Electrolytes go haywire. Breathing feels like dragging humidity through a straw.

I didn’t sign up to be a human warning system. I just wanted to feel okay. But chronic illness rewires you. Suddenly, the weather changes and your joints tighten. Your heart races after a bite of the wrong thing. Humidity hits, and your entire system short-circuits. You become a walking barometer, but it’s not a superpower — it’s a feedback loop with no mute button.

And what I’ve come to realize is: this isn’t a glitch. It’s communication. But it’s not just my body sounding alarms. So is the planet. So are the bees. The bees — what’s left of them — have been warning us far longer. And maybe it’s time we listen.

What Do Dying Bees Have to Do With Corn Sweat?

Bees and corn sweat are both symptoms of the same problem: monoculture farming. Fields packed with only corn release massive amounts of moisture into the air—what locals call "corn sweat"—intensifying humidity and heat. At the same time, these same fields often lack the diversity and nectar bees need to survive, and they’re saturated with pesticides that disrupt bee nervous systems. So while humans sweat it out in muggy air, bees collapse from a toxic, foodless landscape. Different symptoms, same root.

Bees Are Nature’s Nervous System

Why should we care? Bees don’t just pollinate flowers. They coordinate ecosystems. They move nutrients, signal changes, keep the whole system pulsing with life. They’re more than insects — they’re connective tissue in Earth’s body.

And when they start dying off? That’s not just sad. It’s not evolution, it’s not missing survival of the fittest. It’s eradication. That’s biofeedback on a global scale. It’s a fever, a rash, a skipped heartbeat in the biosphere.

But instead of listening, we double down on chemicals and corn. We replace wildflowers with monoculture. We swap diversity for efficiency. And in the process, we lose resilience — in our farms, our air, and our own bodies.

My Collapse Wasn’t Separate

For years, I thought my symptoms were mine alone. The fatigue, the inflammation, the strange food reactions — they seemed personal. But they were never just mine. My body was reflecting the same story as the soil: depleted, overworked,  stripped of the wild diversity that once made it thrive.

Like a monoculture field, I’d become vulnerable to every invader — stress, toxins, heat.
Like the bees, I’d been overexposed, under-supported, and quietly breaking down while no one noticed. But I did.

Listening Is a Survival Skill

Biofeedback isn’t just a wellness trend. It’s what your body is always doing — sending signals. And when you’re sensitive, those signals get loud. Loud enough to feel like panic. Or pain. Or a complete system shutdown.

But what if that sensitivity is actually intelligence?
What if it’s our last remaining connection to a system that’s trying to survive?

The Bees Are Still Whispering

This isn’t about nostalgia for honey or panic over pollination. It’s about warning systems.
It’s about what happens when we ignore feedback long enough to call it normal.

But it’s also about hope.

Because the signals haven’t stopped yet.
Not in my body.
Not in the wild.
Not in people, either.

That low-level buzz of something’s not right.
That’s not just anxiety. It’s awareness.
And it might just be the first step back to balance.

How Did I Arrive at This Conclusion?

Spoiler: it wasn’t in a dream or during a meditation under a bee-blessed almond tree. It took decades. A lifetime, really. The last puzzle piece clicked into place while I was sitting on the couch, sweating like a popsicle in a cornfield, watching PBS. The show? Human Footprint, Season 2, Episode 4: “The Honey Trap.” Add that to my personal library of health research and the sudden body-wide shutdown I experienced in late June — right when the humidity went from “summer” to “swamp documentary.”

Re-connection Isn’t Radical — It’s Survival

Look, I don’t own acres of pollinator paradise. I’m not out here beekeeping in a linen jumpsuit. I can’t even eat honey without turning into a science experiment. But I can feel. And more importantly, I write. So now I’m writing about bees. And biofeedback. And why our bodies — like the hives — are flashing warning lights we keep ignoring.

And if you’re thinking, “Wait, didn’t she say she’s sick?” Yup. Very. That’s why my books are short. Like snack-sized therapy. When I first collapsed in 2009, I was alone and jobless. Enter: online writing gigs. Exit: whatever scraps of health I had left. A few years later, I met Tom. He made me laugh. Then life made him jobless and diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Back to writing I went — not for fun, but for survival. Again. You see the pattern.

Books Don’t Make Us Rich — They Make Us Possible

I don’t write because I think I’ll land on a bestseller list (though hey, Universe, feel free). I write because my nervous system won’t let me take most medications. Neuroplasticity is my treatment. Story is my salve. Writing gives form to the chaos and turns it into something that might help someone else.

Take the skunks. Yes, skunks. For over a year, we’ve been under chemical assault. But it’s not their fault — people paved over their home and called it landscaping. So I wrote It’s Not My Fault, a book about a misunderstood skunk. Emotional alchemy, folks.

Then came the wildfire smoke. Again: can’t change the planet’s thermostat, but I can invent gnomes who whisper to trees and fix what we broke. Enter the Gnomeward Bound series. And now? Corn sweat and bee collapse. I can’t stop industrial agriculture — but I can write. So I did. So I am.

What You Can Do

You don’t need a hive or a grant from the National Science Foundation. Just let your yard go rogue for a season. Skip the pesticides. Plant wildflowers. Wave at the dandelions instead of yanking them. If you’ve got the funds, support a local beekeeper. If not, talk. Share. Tell someone what you’ve learned. Bees don’t just pollinate food — they pollinate awareness. And maybe, just maybe, remembering that we’re part of the hive too is the first step to healing — for all of us.