Golden bumblebees work oak flowers in early summer

The woods near Pawlet hold a quiet urgency in early June. Oak flowers hang in pale green clusters from every branch, releasing clouds of pollen that drift on the warm air. Step into the dappled light beneath these canopies and listen. A low, steady humming rises from the trees.

Golden Northern Bumble Bees work the oak catkins with methodical intensity. These threatened bees, fewer each year, move through the white oak and northern red oak flowers like miners extracting treasure. Their bodies, fuzzy and golden-brown, disappear completely inside the drooping male catkins. They emerge dusted head to toe in yellow pollen, their leg baskets packed heavy. The bees vibrate their flight muscles while clinging to the flowers, a technique called buzz pollination that shakes loose more pollen than gentle crawling ever could. The sound carries through the understory, a deep thrumming that speaks of serious work.

This partnership runs deeper than simple nectar gathering. Oak trees produce no nectar in their flowers. Instead, they offer protein-rich pollen in massive quantities, and only for a brief window. The timing must be precise. Oak flowers last just days once they open, and the Golden Northern Bumble Bee queens, freshly emerged from winter hibernation, need exactly this kind of high-protein food to fuel egg production. Worker bees mix the pollen with regurgitated honey to create bee bread, the primary food for developing larvae. Without this early season protein source, the colony cannot grow large enough to survive the year. The oaks, in turn, depend on these large, strong-flying bees to carry pollen between trees. Wind does most of the work for oak reproduction, but the bees ensure genetic mixing across greater distances, strengthening the forest's resilience.

Watch a Golden Northern Bumble Bee work a northern red oak catkin. She grips the hanging flower cluster with all six legs, pressing her body against the tiny individual flowers. Her wings blur as she buzzes, and pollen explodes around her in golden clouds. She moves systematically from flower to flower, spending perhaps thirty seconds on each catkin before flying to the next. A single foraging trip might take her to dozens of trees across several acres. The pollen she carries will feed not just her own colony but will fertilize oak flowers on trees she visits later, creating the acorns that will sustain everything from wood ducks to white-footed mice through the coming winter. This exchange, repeated thousands of times across the forest, builds the foundation for another year of abundance.

The humming continues above you, steady and purposeful. Look up through the oak leaves, just beginning to cast their summer shade, and you might catch the flash of golden fur against green catkins. The longest days of the year are here, and the forest is making the most of them.