Bees Grooving on Tulip Poplar Blooms

Mid-May is an important time in Western North Carolina beekeeping. The tulip poplars are blooming. See the bloom to the left and the bud to the right...they are definitely tulip-shaped blooms.
A visit to a tulip poplar bloom nets a bee as much nectar as visits to a bunch of different regular little flowers. One stop shopping. Add to that the size of the tulip poplar tree:

I put my assistant beekeeper in the foreground for perspective. She is using binoculars to check the progress of the blooms of the trees next door earlier in May.

Bees don't need trees next door, since they can fly two or three miles and cover 8000 acres in their foraging...but how convenient to have such an enormous source of nectar so close to home. In later years, the bees will make honey, honey, honey from this May bloom. This year they are using it to super charge their honey comb construction in the second deep I added to each hive.

God bless the tulip poplars.