David, Goliath and the Honey Bees

David, Goliath and the Honey Bees

Three thousand years ago, Philistines marched from the coastal plain into the Judaean Hills intending to subdue and enslave the Israelites. Saul massed his defenders on a ridge above the Valley of Elah. The Philistines dug in on an opposite ridge. And there both armies sat, neither willing to disadvantage its troops with an attack from the valley floor.

A giant, fully dressed in the latest and best armor, stepped from the Philistine's ranks and challenged the Israelites to a one-on-one contest. "Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” (1 Samuel 17)

No Israelite volunteered. For the next 40 days, Goliath taunted the frightened Israelites morning and evening. Still, no hero emerged.

A shepherd bringing food to his brothers in the Israelite army heard of the giant's challenge and said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant (I) will go and fight him.”

Engaging in combat without armor was certain death, so ". . . Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic . . . “ Now, thought the king, we have our deliverer.

David tried walking around in the armor. “I cannot go in these. I am not used to them,” and took them off. Dressed in only a plain shepherd’s tunic, and carrying only a staff, a sling and five stones, he stepped out of the Israelite camp into the valley, toward the fully-armored Goliath.

The battle was quick. A single stone from David’s sling embedded deep in Goliath’s forehead. Killed or wounded, the giant fell, face down. David cut off his head. And ever since, that story has been retold by western societies to buck up underdogs. It manifests in protean variations: a small but self-confident individual can prevail over a much larger opponent; a individual who possesses an antiquated, yet in some circumstances superior, weapon can beat an opponent fully protected by the latest that technology can produce; and, by extension, a democratic society with the confident support of its free citizens, and with strong, resilient institutions, can gain the upper hand against the high-tech giants that digitally manipulate and exploit the majority, giants that would, if allowed, relegate the government to the role of underdog. These lessons must not be forgotten.

They are of little help, though, in preventing the decline of honey bees and other invertebrates. How do the insect underdogs, even with our help, defeat the giants of human population growth and economic ‘development’? If mosquitoes couldn’t stop the Panama Canal from being built, then lady bugs have no chance against biplanes killing everything in a field except one select crop. What can a dragonfly do to save a wetland?

David was just a boy when he faced Goliath. But he was much more than a skinny shepherd with a lucky arm. Formerly chargd with protecting his father’s flock, he had practiced with his sling, a notoriously inaccurate weapon, until he could hit a moving wolf at 50 yards with a stone flying at 150-miles/hour. How do I know? Because after his victory over Goliath, followed by years of political and military machinations, he became king, conquered Jerusalem and united the disparate tribes of Israel. He was driven. Ambitious. Intelligent. When still a kid, he knew that a shepherd’s frantic shouts, stick-waving and randomly thrown rocks posed no real danger to wolves. Unless a shepherd's rock hit one, and occasionally injured or killed one, the wolves would pick off sheep around the periphery. He could never win.

So, David practiced. He practiced knocking a stone off a boulder. He practiced hitting a knot on a tree. He practices, after years, he was so good that he could step confidently into the valley and challenge Goliath.

David saved his father’s sheep, and he saved the Israelites, but how do we save the invertebrates? What is our weapon? How do we perfect it? Hurling stones at bulldozers is absurd. Shaking fists at crop-dusters - foolish. Throwing lawsuits at developers occasionally works, but more often than not, society aligns with economic interests. Which mean, plants and animals die. The flock shrinks.

Five days ago, a large track-hoe flattened 18 70-foot pine trees on the acre across the street. In less than 45 minutes, forty-year-old trees had been killed. The last raw acre near me will succumb to construction within months. The pale, yellow wildflowers that decorated bees with pollen will never return. The buzz that comforted me last summer as I watched the sun rise, a buzz that just ten years ago was a roar on my raspberries and a reassuring hum rising in sweet waves off my flowering sedums, a buzz that has accompanied me for ¾ of a century, is now barely a whisper. One more acre – right outside my window - gone. The predators decimate the edges of the flock.

My weapon is my hand. My projectile is seeds. I cast them. I cast them again and again, at multiple targets, at drainage ditches, swales, road shoulders and medians. I cast them into empty lots and along river banks. I sow them by the thousands in my front yard - organic, regional, insecticide-free wildflower seeds. The predators may cull the herd across the street, but I expand the herd. The high-tech world may massacre the fringes and poison global habitat, but I need no high-tech armor to hit back ten-fold.

And I will win. Not with a single blow. But gradually. And permanently. Because Life is on my side.