Here are some coneflowers that I planted in my front yard to entice the honeybees. It turns out that the bumblebees are visiting them much more frequently than my little friends, but they still look nice! The honey story is continuing to improve. Earlier, only the overwintered colonies and very strong splits were producing. Now, only the very slowest colonies and late requeens are lagging. I started a few dozen packages this year to aid my expansion, and almost all of them are significant producers at this point. Now we need the next few weeks to find out if it will be an "okay" year or a really nice crop. I went around yesterday and found that straight boxes of foundation are just getting whited with little flakes of wax--it seems the flow is strong enough that we will get some new combs (if the weather holds favorably). Our fingers are still crossed, but we're also breathing a little easier as the crop becomes more substantial.