Spring is Here, Spring is Here
Posted on March 19, 2012 Posted by John Scalzi 35 Comments
The bees wish to inform you that Spring has commenced. They may be ever so early (the Vernal Equinox is actually tomorrow at 1:14 am Eastern time), but that’s bees for you. Industrious as heck, they are. I suggest listening to them.
Ever since I saw “Vanishing of the Bees” a few weeks ago, I am much more aware of the bees buzzing around outside the house. Saw a bumble bee yesterday and I hope it survived the heavy frost we had last night. Bees, important little buzzers, you know.
“All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon …”
John, You are supposed to be posting items others suggested this week. Get with the program! Forget about spring! Wait a week and it will go away (at least where I live).
We’ve had temps in the 70’s and 80’s here in Indiana the last week. The vernal equinox seems to be heralding summer this year.
We were adopted by a swarm of feral bees a couple of years ago. They settled down nicely in an old (clean) trash can under a blooming tree. Today, they are flitting about in the sunlight, doing what bees do. They bring joy to my heart,
Glad to hear we still have bees.
And yes, Bearpaw, I had the same reaction to the headline on this post, though you skipped a few bars.
Life is skittles and life is beer
I appreciate the extra post! Especially since it was nice, pretty, and succinct. Thank you for the bonus.
My yard, the peach and almond trees are blooming, the daffodils are yellow, the hazelnut
trees are dropping their catkins and the apple tree worries me (Poor surviving apple tree
is older than I am (poor thing!)).
Weather wise, this was an awesome summer day.
–
And I really hope that the things I didn’t get a look at that are near my trash cans in my
wood ‘pile’ are bees.
From the size of them and since they didn’t try to kill me they are not evil bees, and I didn’t
see yellow and it would be great to have a beehive I could feed and rob.
Brown shirts (historical reference) and red shirts? Fine, whatever.
Yellow jacket? I’ll panic and buy a gun.
Non historical: If the UPS guy asked me to bake him a cake I would.
Happy bee. Happy me. Thanks
Oh man, I wish we still had bees. I like bees. A beehive out the back in the garden, that is, we’re still in the foraging zone for the local bees. And because we’re filthy hippies we have lots of flowering “weeds” for the bees, so we have lots of bees. Although I did mow their clover patch the other day.
FWIW, it’s nearly autumn here in Oz, but that’s very much a matter of opinion, we’re close enough to tropical that our seasons are pretty much optional. We more have wet and dry years (la nina/el nino).
“You never can tell with bees.”
Can’t be spring. Last February Obama came out of the white house and saw his shadow. Wait, that’s two more years of extremely high unemployment and high gas prices, not more winter.
Never mind.
Wow…scorpius can’t even enjoy a a nice spring day without using it to take a slam at the President. Now THAT’s bitter.
Ya know, it’s really not nice of you all in the rest of the country to rub your spring weather in our faces. Here in the pacific northwest we’re still in full on winter mode
Man, I keep forgetting to bring out receptionists some Pitsporum that has been blooming this week. They have the fragrance of Camelias.
Erica, if it makes you feel any better, the pollen count in Atlanta today is over 9,000. No, that’s not a typo. For those who don’t track such things, anything over 150 (yes, 150, not 1500) is considered “extremely high”. This is nearly 50% higher than the previous RECORD pollen count. It looks like a light chartreuse snow dusted over everything.
Not sure but I think I saw a robin yesterday morning. It was dark (4:30 AM) and it wouldn’t let me get closer without flying off. Is it possible?
“Help me! Help me!”
Bill-in-DC:
If you’re in DC, yes, it’s entirely possible that it was a robin. I’ve been seeing robins up here in western Massachusetts for at least a week now. If we’ve got ’em, you’ve got ’em.
I just looked in on both my hives this weekend and was pleased to note that they are happy and healthy. All goes well, I’ll be taking splits off each again this year.
Weather-wise spring sprung here in Alabama around November last year. We had a couple months of early spring, February was kind of mid-springish, and now, like Lila in Atlanta, everything is covered in yellow-green tree sperm and it’ll be over 80 again today (27C for all you in the civilized world). (Lucky for me my worst allergies are to grasses, which never stopped growing this year.) it is a very pretty time of year.
Bearpaw: Thanks. Sounds like you’re as unseasonably springlike as we are.
I get into the office about 5 AM and leave about 5 PM so unless I see it in the afternoon I’ll probably miss it. Cthulhu could be out there and I wouldn’t know it.
For a week we had skipped over spring and gone straight to summer. Bit of a cock up on the meteorological front.
I’ve never understood why it is customarily accepted to say Spring _starts_ on the vernal equinox. The equinoxes/solstices represent the midpoints of the seasons, not their transitions. Does it make sense to you that Summer (in the northern hemisphere)_starts_ when the sun is at its most northerly point? Or that Summer _starts_ on the longest day of the year?
Wow – is that an actual honey bee?
I love to see those (from a respectful distance), what with the “colony collapse” mystery and all.
@ Mary Lynn Reed, hopefully some of those runaway bees are your feral bees, & enjoying a nice home with you.
Each year here in NE Ohio, wild honey bees seem more difficult to spot. I remember they were all over our clover-enhanced lawn when I was little.
We’ve had robins here since late Feb., the great blue herons are busy nesting, and the buzzards have returned to Hinkley – Spring has well and truly sprung. :-)
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I love bees! and spring! and, today anyway, just about everything. YAY!
I do. Don’t you? ‘Course you do.
amstrad:
Any definition of seasons that specific is somewhat arbitrary. Having seasons defined with midpoints at equinoxes/solstices wouldn’t be any less arbitrary than having them defined the way they are.
(Maybe a little more so, since it’s historically been easier to recognize the astronomical signs of equinoxes/solstices in order to make divisions between seasons than it would be to recognize midpoints-between-equinoxes-and-solstices.)
Your cherry trees are blooming already? I’m jealous. We just had snow last week.
When they see us coming, the birdies all try and hide,
But they all come for peanuts when coated with cyanide . . .
Denoting the soltices and equinoxes as being the midpoint isn’t quite right either climate-wise because of the inertia in the system. Winter, as defined by nasty weather isn’t yet half-over at the winter solstice.