28 Comments on “And Now: Bees!”

1. Ever thought about keeping a hive?

2. John Scalzi, Apiarist.

3. Nah. The bees seem to do all right on their own.

4. Did this make it to Google Buzz?

5. Obligatory I like my authors like my coffee; covered in bees. comment.

6. But if you had an apiary, you could lease them out for pollination. And sell the honey. Diverse revenue streams!

   Also, you could train them to attack on command and supplement your Evil Villain Armory.

7. Pretty pictures which make me sad, because I haven’t gotten to take my own pretty spring flower & bees pictures yet this year due to cruddy weather and/or extreme busyness.

8. SEF:

   Yeah but then people who would just say I’m doing it because I want to be cool like Neil Gaiman.

   I’M COOL FOR MY OWN REASONS, DAMN IT.

   (Disclosure: Not actually cool.)

9. Aww, we think you’re pretty cool.

   GROUP HUG!

10. More seriously, those are nice pictures. I like being able to see the pollen on her leg in the second picture.

11. Sunday, there were fat buds on my cherry tree but no flowers. Monday it looks like white popcorn, all over. (some years it’s first a few, then more, then full flower, this year, BANG! all at once).

    Great photos.

12. Wow, it looks like spring is really making up for being so late up there! Those pictures are idyllic.

13. These make me really wish Spring would hurry up to Western Pennsylvania.

14. John, if you don’t mind my asking, what kind of camera, lens, and software are you using? Your pictures are always gorgeous.

15. Nikon D70s, 18-70mm lens, Photoshop.

16. About ten years ago we had some bees move into a false wall next to our carport. The garden did amazingly well for the year or so it was there. Then my wife got pregnant, so we decided we’d better do something.

    You don’t want to know how much it costs to get rid of a working bee hive.

17. For the record: bees don’t usually sting flowers, either.

18. No pictures visible. Is it me?

19. I’m not seeing pictures either. . . Just ovals.

20. I see black line frames with solid white backgrounds, and a little red “X” in the upper left corner.

    What I don’t see is Bees.

21. Bees have five eyes.

    That is all.

22. If the bees are normal North American Honey Bees, then you can pet their furry little backs with your finger, and they will ignore you. Still, stay away from the hive.

23. Beautiful pictures John. It is hard to take good pics of bees at flowers. We are hobby apiarists and our bees are out and around, and coming back to the hive with full pollen sacks. No idea where they are getting the pollen, we’re in southern Ontario and it seems to us humans that nothing is blooming yet! We are hobby apiarists, and I was wondering if you would mind if I coped and used your pictures, with credit to you for taking them. There will be NO commercial profit, but they are great examples of bees at work, to show friends and family. This hobby is the MOST FUN EVER. Loads of work sometimes, but the sweet honey is a worth it.

24. And you are just all abuzz at the thought of seeing them again, aren’t you?

25. SaraY: go ahead.

26. That’s why I hate visiting my Ohioan inlaws during the spring/summer. Bees. (No really, that’s the reason, stop looking at me like that)

27. Thank you! And yes, we’re all excited to have our girls out and about :)

28. I don’t see STIN’ZORGA, KING OF BEES in that shot. Maybe he was in Illinois at the time.

    But man, I miss having beehives. Kind of hard to have them if you’re not out in the country, though. The neighbors tend to get nervous even if you bribe them with honey. (Sometimes I think honeybees look at those asshole yellowjackets and think “THIS is why we can’t have nice things.”)