I love these creatures. Not only are they beautiful, but they feed on insects that you do not want in your garden.
Thanks for sharing a beautiful picture.

My sister knew the scientific name and she said they are good for the garden too. Never have I see one in my years.

Here's a little info from Spiderz Rule:

Black and Yellow Argiope - Argiope Aurantia
This lovely spider only has a short life span and once she has produced one or more (usually no more than 3) brown, papery egg sacs, she will die. The egg sacs are roughly round in shape and up to 25 mm in diameter; each contains 300 to 1400 eggs. She attaches her egg sacs to one side of her web, close to her resting position at the centre. Each female will watch over her eggs as long as she can, but will die in the first hard frost, if not before. The eggs hatch in Autumn ( fall), but spiderlings stay in the sac during winter and emerge in spring. There is also a silver argiope which differs in that it has a metallic silver back.

Dax

Yes if they get in the way we just take a broom and move them to a better area as they do like to get in the driveway or in front of the doorways. People down here were calling them bannana spiders, as the seem to hang around our bannana plants, but bannana spiders aren't anything to mess with and these do a great job of keeping many bugs away from our home.