Yeah, they're so pretty I'm hesitant to chop them down until they've pretty much finished blooming, and the bees might not appreciate that either. There were plenty of bees for me to take a photo of today, too. We used to have a couple of French pussy willows, and when they would bloom in the spring they would attract so many bees you could hear the buzzing from a good five feet away.
I don't know what hive they came from, I'm not aware of any of my neighbors keeping bees, but someone's getting some lovely buckwheat honey.
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