Van Nuys, simplified: Nature and utility at war. Beauty is forever encroaching upon blight here.
Inscrutable dogs park their disembodied heads atop concrete block walls and stare at us as we walk past.
Funghi popcorns from tree bark to announce an early spring.
…and people leave their bees nests in a box by the sidewalk.
The bees don’t stay in the box, believe it or not. They move five feet to the utility pole, and begin a new hive. They wiggle furiously into the seams. Unless I’m mistaken, these are honey bees, a diminishing natural resource. Are they queen-less now? Will they survive to re-pollinate the neighborhood, or collapse?
In Van Nuys we say ‘meh’ to nature, and nature ignores our indifference in return.
Note that the commercial honey bee, apis mellifera, is native to Europe. Any honey bees you see in North America are imported, and not needed by local plants. Every honeybee in the US could die, and native plants would tick along just fine. (Crop plants, on the other hand…)