Beeswax

"It's none of your beeswax."

I can't speak for Southeast Missouri. I didn't grow up here. In western Pennsylvania, though, this sentence left the mouths of many of my contemporaries as a child in the 1960s. No one ever explained its origins.

We all got the idea, though.

If someone said beeswax, we knew it had something to do with personal business -- as in, stay out of it.

In a story that may well be apocryphal, beeswax was said to have been used by pockmarked women to smooth out their complexions. Smallpox, a dreaded worldwide scourge as late as 1980, left lingering scars on the face.

Beeswax helped, but the downside of the product is it tends to melt in warm weather and could drip off a person's chin, leading people to stare.

Hence the phrase, "mind your own beeswax," which later morphed into "It's none of your beeswax."

As a child, I never thought about bees unless that phrase was used or on the rare occasions when I'd be stung by one of the creatures.

As I've aged, I've grown to appreciate the interconnectedness of creation. Human beings matter, yes. So do bees.

The Earthwatch Institute, meeting in London this past summer, declared bees the most important living being on the planet.

Earthwatch claims the agriculture of the world depends in large measure on these insects.

Albert Einstein was once heard to remark that without bees, humans would be extinct within four years.

It's a pretty simple formula. The pollination the bees make allows plants to reproduce. Those plants are food for millions of animals. Take away plants and animals and homo sapiens would soon become an endangered species.

Bottom line: don't kill that bee flying around your head. It's trying to save your life.

My friend Grant Gillard is a retired pastor and beekeeper. I bought his honey for years when he lived in Jackson. I wanted something theological from him about bees and the erudite Presbyterian did not disappoint.

"One cannot deny honeybees are the creative genius of a benevolent God," Gillard said.

"(God) created these bugs to collaboratively partner with fruits and vegetables in the act of pollination -- producing the sweetest substance known to humanity."

I believe Genesis 1:28, which calls on humanity to "have dominion" over creation is ultimately a call to take care of the planet.

The truth is collectively we're doing a lousy job.

We're killing off the bees.

I know global warming is hotly debated but there's little question what the world would be like without these little buzzing things.

Bees also are remarkably clean creatures.

A nongovernmental organization (NCO), the Foundation for Agrarian Innovation, claims bees are the only living being not to be a carrier of any type of pathogen.

No fungi, no viruses, no bacteria.

The aforementioned science is above my pay grade. I don't understand much of it.

But the following is easy to glean.

The population of bees, according to Earthwatch, has been reduced by as much as 90% worldwide.

Causes include massive deforestation, destruction of nests, lack of flowers, use of certain pesticides, and changes in soil.

In Switzerland, the claim is made that mobile telephones are damaging to bees. The waves emitted during calls disorient bees, causing them to lose their sense of direction.

You can see the problem.

The bees get confused and can't find flowers and other plants. They don't pollinate. The ecosystem gets, for lack of a more eloquent phrase, messed up.

Ultimately, we pay the price.

My pastor friend offers this amusing aside:

"Likely for (God's) own amusement, the bees have stingers to remind us they're here."

Take care of the corner where you live, dear reader, and the next time you see a bee, please leave it alone.

Let it do its thing.