It’s Spring

In our front flower bed there are several clumps of light blue crocus that, at our place on the hill, are the first flowers to bloom each spring  –

 

These crocus had been in my grandparents’ garden as long as I remember; more than 35 years ago we moved a few of  to our garden. There they’ve slowly multiplied and spread a bit so we now have several separate clumps. These crocus are apparently a heritage variety and they bloom earlier than any of the newer more colorful varieties that are commonly planted.

These early crocus were in bloom for a few days until the bright sunny day a bit over a week ago when the first bees of the year showed up to gather pollen.

There weren’t many bees for, although it was a sunny day, it was fairly cool and quite breezy. A few bees buzzed around the flowers, loaded up with pollen and then flew off. For a while they were all gone, then suddenly three or four reappeared to, once again, load up with pollen –

 

Again they disappeared for a while, then returned. That coming and going continued until the temperature began dropping toward the end of the day. But, each sunny day for the next few months they'll be back, not just for crocus pollen, but for pollen from whatever flowers are in bloom.