Bee Vision (BV)

Sitting on the back patio on summer afternoons and evenings is really relaxing for my family.  Often times Jon and I will just sit and sip our homemade soda while we look at the garden, bees, birds, dragonflies, and whatever else catches our eyes.  In particular, we enjoy watching the bees come and go from their hives and pollinate the clover by our feet.  Following a hot afternoon, the bees will often form large beards on the front of their hives in an effort to cool off and fan cooler air into the hives.  It is fun watching their beard grow as the evening progresses.  

Honeybees are mysterious creatures to me because I never really know what's going on inside their boxes.  I stare at the hives imagining them crawling around the frames and chewing on the nectar to make honey.  I wonder where the pollen comes from that is attached to their legs.  I try and watch where they go once they leave their hive, but they are so dang fast, I lose sight of them about two feet from the hive entrance.  Jon and I stare, mesmerized by their flights to and from the hive entrances for probably a couple of hours each week during the summer.  We call this our BV (aka Bee Vision) time---similar to TV watching.  We haven't owned a TV in eight years and find other ways to entertain ourselves, hence why we sit on the patio.  Don't get me wrong, we watch movies from our computer, but we just don't find much value in watching sitcoms, depressing news stories, and commercials.  There is just too much to see in the small ecosystem in our backyard suburban lot!

(Bearding on the outside of the hive.)