Old doors open when you don't expect.
Doorway, Stark County corn crib
Growing up, we had a bee hive to pollinate our citrus grove. When I was 11 or 12, the bees swarmed. A cloud of bees, 20 or more feet around, swirled like a tornado near our back door. The swirling got tighter, the cloud got smaller, getting close around a Temple Orange tree. Eventually, the queen landed on a branch and the worker bees clustered around her, a living, whirring bundle. Dad called a beekeeper, who came with his netted hat, calmly grasped the branch the hive clustered on, clipped off the branch, and put the swarm in a box. I never saw another bee swarm.
Corn crib, soybean fields, and summer sky
I was driving Tuesday, watching a great summer sky, wanting to use my new wide angle filter. (Thank you, you know who.) Finally, I saw something that could anchor an image. I drove up, parked, and walked up to the corn crib.
As I got closer, looking through the viewfinder for a composition, I heard humming. Thinking there must be machinery working inside, I looked up and realized there was a vortex of bees 30 or 40 feet wide swirling around the front of the building. I wanted to get closer for a better shot, but thought that might not be wise.
Corn crib and bees, Stark County, Illinois
I saw the bees were starting to land on an opening between old boards on the building. The cloud of bees was getting smaller. You can see the group centering on the opening and others silhouetted against the sky on the left.
New bees, old boards
Honey bees finding a new home
I went back to the car to get a longer lens. The swarm cloud was getting smaller and more bees were landing on the boards and moving inside. I moved along, transported back nearly fifty years.