First honeybee, crocus, home

With the temperatures heading towards 70—no doubt record-warm territory—and my granddaughter Stasia in tow, the naturalists circumnavigated the gardens to see what new flowers decided to tempt fate and bloom unnaturally early. The main debut this day was staged by a patch of big blue—"They're actually purple," said my alter-ego, who gently corrected the observation of my red-green colorblind eyes—crocuses, and no sooner had we camped by the blossoms to watch them for a minute or two than we noticed another visitor: an early-active honeybee. Usually, the first hymenopterans on the wing around here are fat queen bumblebees, newly awakened in their underground haunts and sent skyward to feed and gain the energy necessary to begin to make subterranean nursery nests. But this gentle lady most likely came from a nearby hive, either a wild one or one belonging to a local beekeeper. Wherever she—bees this time of year are always female—calls home, she was clearly happy to find food. I'm guessing she will soon depart to tell her hive-mates about the happy discovery. I'm also guessing we'll soon have lots of bee company—un-bee-lievable, given the date... sorry about that... but a sign of the global warming times, for better or worse.