April 10

The first honeybees, Apis meliflora, visited our crocus blossoms today. It was a clear, still, and relatively warm afternoon, and at some point during the warming day, the first foraging workers must have ventured out to find our pitiful early fare.

A neighbor keeps several bee boxes in the northern corner of the farm field, which is only a few hundred yards as the crow flies, across the road, through the tall spruce line, and over the undulating vegetable field. In the winter, the bees are clustered together inside the hives, ever rotating within a tight ball so that they conserve heat. On calm days in midwinter, when the temperature is so cold outside, I’ve put my ear to the side of the box and listened to the dull hum of the bees within.

Now I imagine that scouts have been leaving the hives for a couple of weeks, looking desperately for pollen and nectar sources to report back. It’s difficult to think that our twenty or so crocuses could cause much excitement, but to look at them now in the afternoon sun loaded with bees going in and out of each one makes you think the pickings are good.

The air is still right now, and I can clearly hear the calls of several birds – some in the spruce line, some in the north woods, and others behind the house near the feeder no doubt. Now joining the chorus are the emergent insects that are beginning to buzz about.

These insects will be the fodder for our new bird migrants that soon will come, our grosbeaks, catbirds, wrens, and orioles. Spring is continuing to arrive.