honeybees

Friday November 11, 2016

Dave Bonta November 11, 2016

A honeybee investigates my thermos mug, brushing my finger with her wings. The barberry bush trembles from all the sparrows in it.

Thursday October 20, 2016

Dave Bonta October 20, 2016

The tulip poplar sapling in the yard glows in the sunlight, a golden column. A honeybee buzzes around the empty light socket above my head.

Saturday April 16, 2016

Dave Bonta April 16, 2016 1

A halictid bee lands on the top railing and presses her dark abdomen to the warm wood. A honeybee on a lower rail cleans her antennae.

Monday September 23, 2013

Dave Bonta September 23, 2013 1

A honeybee lands on the porch railing, and seconds later, a hornet lands four inches away. When the bee takes flight, so does the hornet.

Wednesday September 14, 2011

Dave Bonta September 14, 2011 6

Many of the asters that shut their purple lashes for the night have yet to open, frustrating a honeybee. A squat native bee pushes right in.

Monday August 08, 2011

Dave Bonta August 8, 2011 1

A honeybee conducts a slow inspection of the porch railing, including my boots. I’m pondering the secret cousinship of wrens and crickets.

Tuesday April 06, 2010

Dave Bonta April 6, 2010

Bumblebees joust, and a sun-drugged honeybee wanders the folds of my jeans. Spring’s parade devolves into a mob, everything blooming at once.

September 23, 2017
Blue sky; the scars from early-morning jets heal quickly. A male Carolina wren's fulsome singing elicits as usual the female's terse zzzzip!
September 23, 2016
A dead hornet lies on her back beside my chair with her six legs folded neatly over her thorax. At the woods' edge, a rain of yellow leaves.
September 23, 2015
Thick fog at mid-morning. The sudden cry of a Canada goose right above the trees, the sound of its wingbeats. The squirrels crying back.
September 23, 2014
A cloudless sky. In the bright sunlight, the tattered remnants of webworm nests gleam like flags of surrender at the top of the walnut tree.
September 23, 2013
A honeybee lands on the porch railing, and seconds later, a hornet lands four inches away. When the bee takes flight, so does the hornet.
September 23, 2012
The trees at the edge of the woods are now an almost even mix of green and yellow leaves—until the sun comes out and turns them all to gold.
September 23, 2011
At the woods' edge, the yellowest birch seethes with small birds—kinglets, I think. But by the time I fetch binoculars, the tree is still.
September 23, 2010
Thick fog at daybreak, as if the bright moon of 2am had spread a kind of mildew over the mountain. Train whistle. A nuthatch's nasal call.
September 23, 2009
At first light, the soft wickering of migrant wood thrushes. A deer snorts three times, and suddenly I'm seeing a bear in every shadow.
September 23, 2008
Another gray morning. High against the clouds, a pair of ravens exchange triple croaks. The chipmunk in the garden scratches behind one ear.