Tornadoes in New York City? In Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas, for sure, but one rarely hears of them in The Big Apple. It was moving to read the personal comments of people who'd lived and worked around the earth-friendly giant trees ravaged and lost during the September 16, 2010, tornado that ripped through Brooklyn and Queens.
Perhaps a most unexpected and destructive aspect was that a huge colony of honeybees lived in one large tree cleft by the storm. The impact devastated the colony because of the demise of the one on whom its existence and operations depend, the queen bee. In a time when honeybees are dying in high numbers across the country, it is a double tragedy to lose both the bees and the trees, both of which are so necessary in our literal and figurative ecological landscape.
To think that a community of millions of bees was decimated due to the queen being lost and presumed dead, is sad. Marauders from other bee colonies came and stole the honey so that people could not salvage even it. Noble efforts to relocate the honeycomb, thinking to attract the queen and survivor bees, were not successful.
Reference was made to thousands of other trees throughout the area destroyed by the tornado, some in poignant detail. The piece was a sad commentary on the wrath of Mother Nature's less kinder side.
Sad story! We definitely need bees to help our farming industry!
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