ARTICLE: A Sculptor Creates a Stop on the Bee Train
By ELAINE LOUIE - The New York Times 

“Christopher Russell, 52, a Manhattan sculptor, is one of 10 artists commissioned by the M.T.A. Arts for Transit and Urban Design program in its latest project to enhance New York subway stations. Almost all of the new works (seven are scheduled for unveiling today along the D line in Brooklyn) are laminated glass windscreens that edge subway platforms above ground…

Mr. Russell was entrusted with designing bronze gates, 7 feet high and 6 feet wide, at the Ninth Avenue Station in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. The gates depict honeybees crawling on hives, and the posts of adjacent fences will have honeybees resting on 17 finials shaped like flower heads…

I’ve worked in ceramics for 20 years, and primarily with birds, sea life and bees for the last five years. I became interested in the incredible complexity of hives, the detail of the work bees do and the exactness. I took it upon myself to recreate these hives in ceramic, and that became a three- or four-year project…

I think people understand that bees are a valuable presence in this world, that they symbolize a kind of bucolic peacefulness and simplicity. Bees go about their business. They’re actually very docile when they’re swarming.”

[click here to view the full articles on nytimes.com]

Bees help make raspberries in Kenya

“A few days ago I visited a friend of mine who runs a farm on the outskirts of Nairobi. Su Kahumbu is an organic farmer who does amazing work with farmers across Kenya promoting sustainable agriculture and innovation…

One of the crops growing at her beautiful model farm are raspberries.

These delicious fruits are one of my favourite desserts… And of course in order to have raspberries on the table you need to have raspberry bushes. The raspberry bushes have flowers that need to be pollinated in order for the beautiful and yummy fruit to develop…

Raspberry flowers are composite flowers – which means that they are actually made up of many tiny individual flowers all joined together.

In order for a flower to set fruit, it needs to be pollinated. On Su’s farm these free services are provided to her raspberry bushes by several different kinds of bees. One of the most common pollinators is the honeybee…

As these are composite flowers, every single tiny individual flower, called a floret, needs to be visited and gently dusted with pollen by a bee. Otherwise there will be no fruits produced.

…The quality, shape, flavour and size of the raspberry fruit are all directly tied to the efficiency of the pollinators. Too little pollen and the fruit is pale, small and not very sweet. It takes many visits by many bees to make a fruit round and sweet..

It is the actions of all these bees who make the delicious raspberries happen!

Please think of the bees that put the food on your table next time you enjoy some raspberries for breakfast or dessert…”

[Click here to read the full article on NationalGeographic.com]

“HONEY FARM” - by LUSH

If you are not familiar with LUSH yet - check them out - they are awesome!

I first encountered LUSH when I went to a Tails for Whales event they put on with Kristin Bauer from HBO’s True Blood. AND just recently… Kristin Bauer started buzzing for the BEES!!

You can check out the little video I put together for IFAW’s event below:

IFAW event @ LUSH from Chelsea McFarland on Vimeo.

EVERYONE GET EXCITED - SEPTEMBER IS NATIONAL HONEYBEE AWARENESS MONTH!!! 

Water Meter Bees

Today Chelsea and I rescued a hive from a water meter in Chase Park in Marina Del Rey with fellow Backward Beekeeper Susan. Susan is a violinist in the Marina Del Rey Orchestra and noticed the bees coming out of the meter after a rehearsal. She contacted the park administration and asked them if we could rescue the bees. They didn’t know about Susan’s bees, but they had planned to call vector control to have another 3 hives in the park exterminated (“foamed”). They were happy to let us rescue the bees.

I thought it was going to be a fairly small hive because these water meters are checked every few months. Well, this one must have gone awhile because when I cracked the lid, I discovered at least a 6 month old hive. 

We worked quickly to cut out the comb from the water meter, brush the bees into a nuc box and tie the comb into frames. 

 

This was Susan’s first cut-out and she did a great job. Ken, our park supervisor, was intrigued with the whole process, paying careful attention to our every move. He even got his first ever bee sting and could have cared less. 

None of us could believe how many bees came out of this little water meter. After we brushed the queen into one of the nucs, it was like a stampede to get in. The entrance hole soon clogged, forcing the bees to pack another four nucs to the gills. In the end, we rescued every single bee, saving these prolific little creatures from the foam. 

“Bees figure prominently in mythology and have been used by political theorists as a model for human society. Journalist Bee Wilson states that the image of a community of honey bees “occurs from ancient to modern times, in Aristotle and Plato; in Virgil and Seneca; in Erasmus and Shakespeare; Tolstoy, as well as by social theorists Bernard Mandeville and Karl Marx.”

Despite the honey bee’s painful sting and the stereotype of insects as pests, bees are generally held in high regard. This is most likely due to their usefulness as pollinators and as producers of honey, their social nature, and their reputation for diligence. Bees are one of the few insects regularly used on advertisements, being used to illustrate honey and foods made with honey (such as Honey Nut Cheerios).

In ancient Egypt, the bee was seen to symbolize the lands of Lower Egypt, with the Pharaoh being referred to as “He of Sedge and Bee” (the sedge representing Upper Egypt).

In North America, yellow jackets and hornets, especially when encountered as flying pests, are often misidentified as bees, despite numerous differences between them.

Although a bee sting can be deadly to those with allergies, virtually all bee species are non-aggressive if undisturbed and many cannot sting at all. Humans are often a greater danger to bees, as bees can be affected or even harmed by encounters with toxic chemicals in the environment (see also bees and toxic chemicals).”

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee