Honey Bees in our Yard

     There are no hives of honey bees or a colony of wild honey bees in a tree cavity in our suburban neighborhood that I know of.  But we sure do have honey bees in our yard here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, making it more interesting.
     Sterile female worker honey bees come to our neighborhood, as elsewhere, to satisfy their various needs.  They sip sugary nectar from white clover flowers on lawns, the blooms of rose-of-sharon bushes, the blossoms of straw flower plants and blooms from other plants in the neighborhood.  As they buzz from flower to flower, chemicals in their stomachs change that nectar to honey, which they store in waxy cells they make from honey, to store the fresh honey for winter consumption.
     Worker honey bees also visit our bird bath to suck up water, and minerals from bits of soil and rotting plants birds unwittingly deposit in the water when they come to it to drink and bathe.  The bees drink from the shallow edges and I have seen up to nine of them lined up at once.  And because that bird bath is on one spot in our yard, I can see the bees constantly bee-lining speedily to the water, and away, all day, most every summer day.
     These honey bees also ingest moisture and minerals from damp potting soil under the straw flower plants in two flower pots on our deck.  I have seen up to a dozen honey bees in one container at one time and a lesser number in the other one.
     Honey bees and other kinds of insects make our neighborhood more interesting every summer.  Each reader probably has interesting insects and other wildlife on his or her lawn as well.  One has only to get out and look for them.