It’s not just the colors of fall that are making my yard zing, it’s the shaking and buzzing that tints the autumn soundtrack. My new and glamorous purple-pink anemone, with its elegant five-petaled faces and cute-as-a-button buds, make me think of a ladies’ lounge in a 1930s screwball comedy. (Yes, I know, those films were all in black and white, but you know it was all plush pink velvet.) When I walk by my anemone, it sounds like a bee-fueled Pollen-palooza is raging.

To learn more about bees, I attended a talk at the Elm Grove Library by beevangalist beekeeper, bee wrangler and honey purveyor Charlie Koenen. Did you know there are 517 native bee species in Wisconsin, and 90% of them are solitary bees (meaning no hive)?

But for the social bees, Charlie’s description of the complex

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