Nancy’s yard is a paradise for bees, bumble bees and honey bees. The honey bees visit blossoms and then streak off in the direction of Rock Creek Park, so I suppose their hives are down the woods by the creek. The bumble bees are another thing. The giants, six to ten times as big as honey bees, probably don’t fly long distances for good reason. I remember Mrs. Mitchell, my high school biology teacher, saying that bumble bees shouldn’t be able to fly at all. Their engineering is all wrong for flying, but obviously bumble bees didn’t get the word, so they bumble from one blossom to the next with determination. They fly slowly, so I followed one and found the nest in the back of a shed in Nancy’s yard. They were going and coming from a small hole in he ground near the back wall of the shed.

I read about them and learned that males have a very simple easy life. Apparently they contribute nothing to the general welfare of the nest. The male bumble bee’s sole purpose in life is to forage for himself and mate... sounds like appropriate material for plots of a television series.

The hard-working bumble bee on Nancy's Azalea in the picture below is female. She has sacks on her legs for carrying pollen back to the nest. The males don't even have sacks for carrying pollen. They take their pleasure where they find it.