wise words
Brigit Strawbridge Howard on Rediscovering Nature
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by April Thompson
ee advocate, wildlife gardener and naturalist Brigit Strawbridge Howard was alarmed the moment she realized she knew more about the French Revolution than the native trees around her. Howard’s realization that she had lost touch with the natural world led her on a journey deep into the fascinating world of honeybees, bumblebees, and the often unsung superpollinator solitary bees, chronicled in her book Dancing with Bees: A Journey Back to Nature. Howard writes, speaks and campaigns to raise awareness of the importance of native wild bees and other pollinating insects. She lives in North Dorset, England, with her husband, Rob, where they love to beewatch in their backyard garden.
in their world; the more I watched them, the more I lost track of time and the more questions I had. I also began to more worry about the bees themselves than about their decline’s effect on us. Bees have been a portal to the natural world for me. It happens when many people get interested in a specific species because everything is interconnected, and you start to notice the whole web of life.
What makes bees distinct from other kinds of insects?
Bees go out specifically to collect pollen and It’s never too late to nectar to feed their larvae; other insects reconnect and find the curiosity and awe eat pollen and are important pollinators, that you experienced but don’t collect it for their young. They also as a child. tend to visit the same flower species again and again, which What first piqued your other pollinators don’t always do.
interest in bees?
Initially, apocalyptic headlines about bee decline and colony collapse with female worker bees leaving hives and not coming back alarmed me from a human food chain perspective. It happened to be around the time I realized I had completely lost touch with the natural world I so loved as a child. I started looking for bees and became completely immersed 34
Broward County, Florida edition
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How has your study of bees affected you personally?
I dropped out of school as a teenager. Bees are the only thing I’ve truly ever studied; I am self-taught in insect biology and ecology. I have read scientific papers that I would have never thought were for the likes of me in my quest to understand more about bees.
