Thanksgiving dinner—thanks to the bees

Thanksgiving Day in the United States is traditionally celebrated with an over-sized meal based on a stuffed turkey. Since the turkey always takes center stage, many refer to it as “turkey day.” However, to be fair we should call it “bee day.”

Think about bees if you will be eating broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, squash, turnips, avocados, eggplant, or leeks. Does your stuffing contain sunflower seeds, onion, or parsley? Will you be having cranberry sauce or blueberry muffins? Or how about pickles?—cucumbers, dill, and garlic are all pollinated by bees.

Do you see any carrots or celery? The seeds needed to plant these crops required pollination by bees as well. And the tomatoes were helped along by bumble bees.

Do you have a fruit bowl on the table? Does it have oranges, tangerines, plums, or persimmons? And what about those mixed nuts, including almonds, cashews, and macadamias? Do you have a cheese plate that includes a wedge of honey and crackers with caraway seeds?

And if your pumpkin pie contains pumpkin, allspice, nutmeg, or cinnamon, you can thank the bees for every one of them. And besides apples, your apple pie may contain all those goodies as well as currants and a piece of cheddar cheese on the side.

That’s right. You can’t forget the dairy cows that ate clover and alfalfa, the seeds of which were produced by bees. The milk from those cows provided the butter, sour cream, yogurt, whipping cream, half and half, and all the cheeses that went with the rest of the meal.

I know I’m forgetting something important, but you get the picture. When you sit down at your food-laden table to give thanks for everything we have, take a moment to give special thanks to the bees. Without them, Thanksgiving dinner would not be the same.

Rusty