The Swarm

This afternoon, while walking and talking to my sister who lives in Florida, I came across bees buzzing around a front yard along Mississippi between Mission and Monroe here in San Diego’s University Heights neighborhood. I excused myself briefly and shot a short video using iPhone XS.

Strange thing, when finished I observed the insects swarming about the next property. That kind of deflated my working presumption of a disturbed nearby hive. So I snagged another short video, followed by the Featured Image taken using Leica Q2.

As I rang back Sis and continued going down the sidewalk, the original house presented a surprise: No bees. Not a one. They had all moved to the place I just left, and I turned around to confirm. Whoa. They flew from house to house together looking for nectar.

The companion photo was the first taken; the main one the last. Respective vitals, aperture and shutter speed manually set for both: 1) f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/500 sec, 28mm; 12:34 p.m. PDT. 2) f/8, ISO 400, 1/500 sec, 28mm; 12:35 p.m.

I tried several portrait and square crops but separate low and high compositions work better in combination—and the accompanying videos give great all-around context.