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A toxic relationship to aspire to: love letter to the death camas miner bee

Still from video of a death camas miner bee – watch here on my Patreon page

Ode to an evolutionary love affair between plant and bee, mediated by a neurotoxin

This multimedia essay was first shared with my Patreon supporters as part of an ongoing seasonal offering. Next visual essay and poem coming summer 2025. Thanks for supporting my work!

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. 

Death Camas by the Salish Sea (Still from Nature Girl (2025))

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.

Death Camas by the Salish Sea (Still from Nature Girl (2025))

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?

My high-energy neighbour Charlie, a roaming island dog, frolics among death camas in the bluff meadows of Howe Sound (Átl’ka7tsem), 2025

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?

Death camas in bloom by the sea (Still from Nature Girl (2025))

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. 

death camas miner bee on death camas, photo by trent maynard in 2025
Still from my video of a death camas miner bee – watch full video on my Patreon page

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

Death camas in tall meadow grass (Still from Nature Girl (2025))

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

Thank you for supporting my artist practice.