There are thousands, tens of thousands of honeybees in this place, unsprayed, healthy, gathering pollen at a frenetic pace. Goldenrod covers about 15 acres of 24 and one stalk produces hundreds and hundreds of flowers. In 9 square feet, a patch 3′ by 3′, three stalks held 17 bees. Wading into the yellow middle of it all, the sounds of their flight, of their work, is continuous, a drone and hum that is the best thing I have heard in a long time.
After Monday’s rain, life seems renewed everywhere here — butterflies, dragonflies hovering everywhere I turn, an eastern milk snake hurrying away underfoot, a fall of warblers overnight so that hooded and common yellowthroats flit up from cover and jump to the tree line. The murmur of the bees accompanies all of this extravagance, this balm, this quarter where one might take a breath.
