Why are dozens of colorful boxes stacked in this field? To provide homes inside their walls for millions of honey bees, those hardworking pollinators, producers of honey, and tormenters of Winnie-the-Pooh. Wild honey bee colonies build their nests in trees and caves, but manmade boxes also do the trick, and humans have been building their own beehives since antiquity. The modern beehive boxes shown here contain frames to hold honeycombs that bees produce to store their honey, pollen, and young. When the bees have produced plenty of honey, the beekeeper can simply remove the frames to extract some of it, leaving the rest to nourish the hive.
© Ken Gillespie Photography/Alamy
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