Ode to an evolutionary love affair between plant and bee, mediated by a neurotoxin
I grew up frolicking in the rocky coastal bluffs around Howe Sound (Átl’ka7tsem) in unceded Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation territories, facing the Salish Sea.
These bluffs are home to rich meadows of Indigenous root crops—chocolate lilies, camas, Columbia tiger lily, and nodding onion—plants carefully cultivated by Salish women for thousands of years.
Among them grows the death camas, equally striking, but deadly.
In spring, it’s green foliage and creamy blossoms emerge from mossy rocks and meadows.
By autumn, when bulbs are traditionally harvested as root crops, death camas resemble some of their edible neighbours—long after their distinctive white-yellow blooms have vanished.
Love in a time of zygacine
All parts of death camas—including bulbs, leaves, stalks and pollen—carry zygacine, a potent alkaloid that is toxic to humans and animals, and nearly all pollinators.
Yet one bee evolved to thrive on it: the elusive death camas miner bee—one of more than 500 species of bees indigenous to BC.
For years, I’ve asked other plant and pollinator nerds I meet—”have you ever seen the death camas miner bee?” Most hadn’t heard of them. Nobody had seen one.
Death camas features heavily in the opening sequence of our short film Nature Girl (2025), made with my friend Candace Campo, shíshálh knowledge keeper, artist and founder of Indigenous tourism company Talaysay Tours.
While filming death camas meadows in spring 2023 and 2024, I was hoping a bee would reveal themselves, but to no avail.
It felt like holding vigil for a ghost pollinator, buzzing at the edge of science and memory.
Images and descriptions for this specialty pollinator are online. They are documented. Is the death camas miner bee still here in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and shíshálh lands?
After decades frolicking through death camas meadows, I’d yet to meet a death camas miner bee.
I felt a yearning. Why were these blossoms all empty of insects?
Many specialty pollinators in the Coast Salish region are at risk from habitat loss and climate change impacts, including pathogens.
I couldn’t help but wonder: How are death camas miner bees faring?
One day in May 2025, after years of waiting, watching, and wondering, I saw it: a flicker of movement on a death camas bloom.
The bee danced from blossom to blossom, then soared above our heads as I shouted to my friend, “get a photo!”
We tracked it with bated breath until it landed again, just long enough for me to press record. My heart was pounding. The long-awaited meeting was finally happening.
After years of holding vigil – it was here! My heart was full.
I offer up a poem to this underappreciated neighbour. This is a love letter for an ancient love affair between insect and plant; an ode to a mutuality mediated by a neurotoxin.
As far as toxic relationships go, it’s one to aspire to.
Love Letter to a Death Camas Miner Bee
By Trent Maynard
Year after year I watch these toxic flowers rise
Bobbing their heads above the tall grass
Growing slyly among the nodding onion
Between chocolate lilies and tiger lilies
Beguiling me with their gentle beauty
A medicine for the eyes only
Poison to most beings
The poet included
Empty blooms waiting
Holding vigil
They yearn for their special lover
Practically quivering on the Salish breeze
For the one bee who evolved to crave their poison nectar
They rise for this beloved
For the touch of familiar mandibles
The caress of prickly feet
The sweet vibrations of an undulating buttocks
Today I hear a buzzing
Thousands of years in the making
Perched before me on a death flower
The slender-waisted one
The long-winged one
The star of the vigil
Death camas miner bee!
Feasting upon their favourite poison
Dusting pollen from the neighbours as they go
Now zooming over our heads
Pollen as life
Pollen as death
Each spring old friends rise to greet each other
Finding a path
In the balance of their gifts
Death camas miner bee
Long may your sweet poison flow
This multimedia essay and poem was first shared for paid subscribers on my Patreon.
This is my SPRING 2025 offering from my seasonal essay collection from the land.
Next multimedia essay and poem coming SUMMER 2025. Subscribe here
Generously supported by The Canada Council for the Arts
