I became fascinated by honey bees at a very young age, but there is still quite a lot that I don’t know about them. Now that we’ve reached the end of September and our weather has begun to turn cooler, I noticed there are still plenty of worker bees hovering around all sorts of flowers. It turns out fall is a very busy season for the honey bees —  they’re hard at work right now, storing up as much honey as they can to survive the winter in their hives. I found these bees at Sacramento Bar; I’m not sure what plant this is, but it grows along the banks of the river and stands at least five feet tall in places. And the bees seem to love it.

I was also very happy to find honey bees at the Folsom Zoo Sanctuary; inside their new barn they have a glass-walled beehive inhabited by a large number of extremely dedicated workers.