It started at the Hatteras shore where many Horseshoe crab lay dead last week from some unknown cause. Not just empty shells as is normal from their molting.

We stopped on the way home for BBQ chicken in a little North Carolina restaurant with 3 bullet holes in the windows in what should have been peaceful cotton country where the crop grows in sandy soil right up to the side of the road.

Driving through the night we saw one Orion meteor streak through the darkness ahead in a blaze of dying glory.

Now in Ohio it is cold and the worker bees (females) are starting to pitch out the apparently useless male drones to die. (They would otherwise eat the hive’s winter honey)

The tiny Varroa mite can carry a wing deforming virus which does this to one of my drone’s wings:

Good housekeeping bees will bite the mite and hopefully keep them in check as I don’t want to put any pesticides in the with the honey.

 I didn’t see any bite marks on this upside down one. These mites are only 1 or 2 mm wide.

These bee photos were taken with a $4 macro camera “App” for my Android phone – which already has a camera. I don’t understand it but the resulting close-ups are amazing.  Check your camera-phone. It may have a built-in macro option.

Dead drone.

Happy Halloween