Where did all the pollinators go?

To the Editor,

Some 50-odd years ago, Swarthmore summers featured trucks driving up and down our streets and spraying poison. The intended victims were mosquitos, but honeybees and every other insect under that cloud of death suffered, and that practice was stopped. Several years ago, we planted a pollinator garden with milkweed for monarchs and butterfly bushes for swallowtails. Then we bought a queen bee and her swarm. The queen left and took her bees with her. Was she prescient? Last year we counted two monarchs and three swallowtails in our garden. This year, none. Are there poisons present that we don’t know about?

John Brodsky
Swarthmore