The Dance of the Bees

Dear Diary,

First it was a feeding frenzy on the sedum, now it is an apis pas de deux on the helenium! I sat on the little porch off the guest room and watched this pair of bees dance around and around the little helenium blossom quite content to share the pollen covered floor. This is my best bee close up this season and you can see the large sack of pollen on the back leg of the top bee.

Bees have been a bit of an obsession with me this year. Perhaps because there seems to be so many more of them this summer or perhaps I'm just paying closer attention. I will miss them when the frost finally gets here.

THE BEE - by Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)

Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry

Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.

His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
With chrysoprase, inlaid.

His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!