As an astronomer, I’ve had a keen interest in the weather for the past few years. I’ve spent a lot of time attempting to chart sunny days and frosty ones, to give myself a feeling for when there could possibly be stars out at night.
The bee hives have a similar interest in warm, sunny days, and I find that they do a really good job of determining which days (and which part of the day) is useful for flying.
They’ve been cooped up for the past 3 or 4 days while it rained really hard, so when the sun broke through even a little bit this morning, both hives lit up. There were dozens of bees buzzing around both hive entrances, and there was a pretty good beard on the eastern hive.
As usual, the western hive looks a little more lacksadaisical. Oh well.
I saw a lone bee with pollen on her legs, crawling around slowly outside the western hive. I guess she didn’t have the strength to make it home. Thank you, little bee, for your service.