The Silent Spring is here:

[hedgehog]

I live on an old farm, now mostly reverted to woods. I walk my dogs along a half mile power line right of way. I planted it with Red and Dutch clovers, now in full bloom. The path is bordered on both sides with scads of multiflora rose, also in full bloom, baby's breath, Indian paintbrush, yarrow, native viburnum and flowers I can't name.

This morning i saw 3 bees - all three what i call "sweat bees" - the tiny wild kind.

Not one honeybee

Not one bumble bee

I saw 1 butterfly.

I saw no dragon flies.

I saw only 1 horse fly.

Normally in Spring we deal with a few weeks of black flies - known locally as punkies - but not this year.

I'd say we're all in real trouble.

[Buzz Clik]

1. I had the same concerns at my previous home.

No bees. Zip. However, after a few years, the population was back in a big way.

In my current yard, I was doing some gutter maintenance on my garage when I heard some loud, collective buzzing. I assumed it was a nest of wasps, and I set about finding it. It ends up that it was about 1000 honey bees "servicing" a flowering tree next to the garage. It was quite a sight.

We have three kinds of dragon flies, hundreds of butterflies, bumblebees, etc. No horseflies.

[RobertEarl]

2. Sad, isn't it

I still see a few honeybees, once in a while a butterfly.

Had a slew of wasps at first thaw. After first rain very few.

Leaves of the dogwoods are in rapid decline. Sycamores are dying.

Life here in the Smokies, one of the most pristine areas in the US has changed. I'm just a bit scared.

[undergroundpanther]

3. saw 2 bumbles

and one honeybee last month. It was confused flying awkwardly it landed on the screen door on the inside as I was walking outside.I opened the door again because I wanted him to go back out and he was so weak and disoriented I gently encouraged him off the screen and sat him on a sunny plant near the porch.Normally I would not attempt to remove a bee like that.He made no attempt to sting me.
He was the only one I have seen this year ,and he was really messed up.I hope he found his way back to his hive.

[RobertEarl]

4. Rachel Carson was treated badly

She pointed out the emerging ecological science that saw that when certain imbalances in the natural world are created by man severe consequences ensue.

She was castigated and called a nut back then in the early 60's. But time has shown that her attackers were the crazy people intent only on keeping their ill-gotten gains flowing into their bank accounts.

Today we have several ecological imbalances at work on the environment.

Signs of population collapse are everywhere, and not just in the non-human populations.