Honey Bees?

I walked outside and heard a noise that I have never heard on the mountain. I soon found it was the sound of thousands of bees. The cone flowers looked to be alive. After looking at closeups, I believe these are honey bees. If any of you know them to be a different species, I would love to know. In my twelve years on the mountain, I have never seen this much activity. Every flower bed, including the ones below camp, were buzzing with thousands of busy little bees. I sat and watched them for a few minutes and it was as if they didn't even notice me. They were so busy performing their duties, they had no time for me. I like to think there were so many because earlier in the season I kept after Chris to leave the dandelions alone when he was weedwacking. I had seen several articles on the importance of dandelions and their early season benefit to honey bees. I will say, my husband did a great job of leaving the ones around the edges of the buildings and the high concentration areas. What ever it was, it was great seeing that many little pollinators going about their day to day business.

Yesterday was a mix of sun and rain. We saw bits of blue skies and then we saw a few sprinkles later in the afternoon. The high was 69º with a low of 51º. We are currently under heavy cloud coverage with a small amount of precipitation. We are also experiencing large gusts of wind. If you are hiking up today, make sure you bring clothes to change into. The wind can make it chilly at the top.


Update: new photo as of August 22nd at 12 p.m.