Eastside Fire & Rescue beehive / May 7, 2012

Brian Gilomen, Eastside Fire & Rescue support services technician, checks on one of the frames in which his honeybees have built a honeycomb to incubate eggs and store honey. Gilomen lifts a honeycomb frame out of a brood box to check on the hive. The big queen bee in the middle of the picture lays eggs in the beeswax honeycomb as the female worker bees surround her. Rhododendrons across the street on East Sunset Way from Eastside Fire & Rescue Station 71, and other plants within a three-mile radius, benefit from the pollination by the honeybees living in a hive on the station rooftop. By Greg Farrar