#2952 "Apple Blossom Bumble"

#2952 "Apple Blossom Bumble" 
16 x 20 by 3/4 depth stretched canvas (inches)
Started 9:30 am Monday, June 9th, 2025

"No mow May" is standard practice in the Singleton Sanctuary. That first crop of flowers is vital for all of nature. The trees are among the first to produce blossoms - in this case, an apple tree. There are some very old apple trees on the property. They need much more care than I have time to give. This photographic inspiration was taken by my friend John Verburg. 

The American Bumblebee is an important pollinator of native plant species. Bumblebees typically fly during inclement weather conditions, while other insects stay home. The Bumblebee is considered one of the most determined nest-defending bumblebee species, likely because it nests at or above ground. Bumblebees generally visit flowers up to 2 km from their colony. They tend to visit the same patches of flowers every day, making only enough honey to satisfy their needs. Luckily, we see them in abundance every day. 

American Bumblebee queens spend the winter underground, employing decomposing organic material like rotting logs and compost. 

The American Bumblebee is threatened due to:

• pesticide use 
• habitat loss due to agricultural intensification
• pathogens spillover from domestic bees 
• American Bumblebee might have a low genetic diversity, possibly contributing to its decline, while increasing the production of sterile male individuals

Southern Ontario is the northern edge of the American Bumblebee's distribution. Sadly, the American Bumblebee was added to the Species at Risk in Ontario List on January 25, 2023. 

Human conceit encourages the false belief that we know it all. Nature employs not just temperature but also sunlight, gravity, magnetic fields and even quantum effects to manage daily, seasonal and annual activities. We can't possibly fully understand nature, which is tremendously complex and interconnected. 

Uneven global warming has created temperature variations that are out of step with solar radiation. Fragile interconnections between symbiotic species that took thousands of years to tune have been broken seemingly overnight. Insect populations appear to be crashing... 

For example, the blossoms of the apple tree are triggered by a combination of factors: temperature, light, hormones, nutrients and water. Temperature is a strong factor influencing bumblebee foraging. The bumblebees become inactive at both very low and very high temperatures. 

The weather is also changing and driving bigger modifications in the climate. Earth is in the initial stages of verifying the 1970s calamities predicted by the continued exploitation of fossil fuels. We are now just witnessing the tip of the melting iceberg, fueled by greed and the lust for power.

Bumblebees remain safe with the Singleton Sanctuary. Humans seem to think that they have all the answers when they don't even know a fraction of the questions. This encourages a toxic combination of arrogance and ignorance that has resulted in decades of dithering and inaction. Open minds, fresh thinking and wisdom are urgently required to come to the rescue of all species on the planet. May I kindly recommend any book by Diana Beresford-Kroeger. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint 2024 Collection. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick