Bees on My Balcony

 

Bees on my Balcony

A swarm of bees landed on my balcony.

I invited them; and they accepted.

It wasn’t a written invitation.

It was instead a beehive, built to their specifications:

              A snug cavity with some old comb

High above the ground,

              And the entrance:

                             Just one,

                             At the bottom of the cavity,

                             Smaller than a bear’s paw,

                             Facing south.

I was sitting on my balcony, with a coffee and the paper, when I heard them coming along the tree line.

Tens of thousands of bees make quite a racket, and they filled the sky and their looping random flight.

Gradually, they made their way over to the balcony, then down to the landing board, and then marched into the hive.

A few stayed on the landing board and fanned their lemony Nasanov scent, bee talk for “Hey, we’re over here! Come on! Come on!”

In half an hour the colony had settled in.

And outside, foragers were departing and returning as if they had always lived there.