The flower field was silent!

　Back in the old days, the flower fields were as noisy as nursery rhymes with the buzzing of bees, but now it’s eerily silent. It feels like the decline of bees, bumblebees, and hornets started in the 1990s. Beekeepers say they can only find them in mountainous areas at least 1 km away from rice fields or in parks in Tokyo. This seems to be a global phenomenon, and the cause is suspected to be neonicotinoid pesticides from the pesticide mafia in the United States.
　The males of bumblebees have yellow noses and no stingers, so they don’t sting. When I was a child, I often caught them and gently pressed their bellies to enjoy the honey they offered. Occasionally, I remember being stung on the palm of my hand by mistake when I caught a female with yellow pollen on her.　

What can we do to ensure that bees continue to thrive without humans needing to pollinate?

　Recently, there have been quite a few meat-eating hornets and long-legged wasps, and I often get stung by them, but this year, these meat-eating species have disappeared.