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What happens when you put a scanning electron microscope in the hands of an artist?

This new book…

Bee by Rose-Lynn Fisher

Bee by Rose-Lynn Fisher presents sixty photos of magnified honeybee anatomy.

Antenna joint, 400x, Rose-Lynn Fisher

For beekeepers thirsting for a better understanding of honeybee anatomy this book is indispensable. For artists, it’s inspirational.

Antenna pollen, 1100x, Rose-Lynn Fisher

Available at Princeton Architectural Press.

Lilac swarm, May 2010

This singular lilac bush caught three swarms of bees in May. The one above was so heavy it pulled the branch it landed on all the way to the ground.

Bee on dandelion, Boulder, Colorado, April 2010

Are you letting your dandelions bloom? I hope so. And if not, I invite you to at least think about it. Not only are they responsible for an enlivening burst of yellow each spring, dandelion pollen provides an important early source of protein for growing honeybees. And they’re effortless to grow (at least, that’s how it seems).

American lawn tastes are changing, and those who welcome dandelions represent the vanguard of a new aesthetic. Read more in this article by a self-proclaimed Dandelion King.

At our house we don’t use herbicides. Dandelions bloom though we try to trim seeds before they scatter. It’s a little futile. But there’s something happy about it. I do like yellow.

Thanks to Derek Friday at Finndustry for the Dandelion King link.

This beautiful thing was made by a bee.

Flower Petal Nest by Osima avoseta

In a tender new discovery scientists have learned that the solitary O. avoseta queen bee works alone to make these petal nests for individual eggs and larvae. More wonderful pictures on NPR. And nice story on eurakalert.

Thank you, Susan.

Thanks to my friend Susan J. Thompson for reminding me of these wax and pollen works works by Wolfgang Laib.

Pollen from Dandelion by Wolfgang Laib, 1999

Untitled by Wolfgang Laib, beeswax, 1993

The Five Mountains Not To Climb On by Wolfgang Laib, 1984

Those yellows are something special, don’t you think?

Two jars of honeybee propolis dissolving in rum, 3/1/2010

Honeybee propolis ranges in color from dark brown (almost black) to rusty red, gold and green depending on what plants the bees who made it foraged on. Raw propolis is changeable, taffy-like stuff (stretchy and sticky when warm, brittle when cold) made from trees by bees. You can read more about it and see another picture here.

The colors that rise up during tincture making are breathtaking. I’ll shake these jars a couple of times a day for the next two weeks and will get a hit of warmth every time I see that red. I wonder if it will change with time or stay the same?

Recipe here.

It’s an honor and a pleasure to announce that Sister Bee is screening in St Louis, Missouri tonight, January 26th as part of the Slow Food St. Louis Urban Homesteading Series.

Those of you charmed by bee imagery should check out Bees in Art, a virtual gallery of lovingly rendered images of honeybees, bumblebees and other Hymenoptera.

Worker Honey Bee, mezzotint engraving by Andrew Tyzack

Curator, artist and beekeeper, Andrew Tyzack, has assembled a collection of vintage books, paintings, drawings and prints that enhance his dramatic paintings of beekeepers at work.

Honey Farming, oil on linen by Andrew Tyzack.

The collection has a storybook quality that’s earnest and sweet and not at all didactic.

I love the softness of this bumblebee.

Bombus Terrestris, print by Richard Lewington

Flow•er
noun Botany
The seed bearing part of a plant consisting of reproductive organs.

verb • figurative
To be in or reach an optimum stage of development. Develop fully and richly.

There’s a beautiful story about the evolution of flowers in today’s NYTimes.

I’m a sucker for color charts. Mervi Hjelmroos-Koski has written a nice post about pollen color (which includes a link to this peach of a chart) for the botanical illustration blog she writes for the Denver Botanic Gardens.

Thank you, Mervi!

From “The Pollen Loads of the Honeybee” by Dorothy Hodges

There’s a brilliant happiness essay in today’s NYTimes, Oh, Sting, Where Is Thy Death? by Richard Conniff. It’s about the Justin O. Schmidt Sting Pain Index. Entomologist Schmidt, who’s worked with all kinds of stinging insects, expertly rates their stings by level and variety of pain.

According the the Schmidt scale, a honeybee sting is “like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin,” while a yellowjacket’s is “hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.”

There’s a great article about collapsing bee colonies at Salon.

The Sister Bee trailer is now available on YouTube. You’re warmly invited to share.

It’s been a long time coming, but Sister Bee finally has a new website all her own. You can check it out here. The site includes biographies of the Sister Bee beekeepers, information about the soundtrack and She Said, a retrospective blog about the making of Sister Bee including quotes and outtakes like these:

It’s wonderful to see… life!

- Mery Molenaar

I’m a beekeeper. Um hmm… The bees keep me.

– Marge McLellan

Some of the hardest lessons, the best lessons, have come from making dumb mistakes.

- Patricia Butler

How do bees construct wax comb so perfectly?

They use their bodies as measuring tools, sometimes holding hands, making great chains of bees.

The process is called “festooning” and it’s wonderful to see. In the picture below, you can see a small festoon has formed to measure the distance from bottom of comb to the edge of the frame.

Here it is again, close up.

I took this next picture by looking down into a hive after disturbing the measuring process by removing a frame.

The broken chain reformed immediately, taking into account the new distance between combs.

Though it’s easy to see them in action here, their way of thinking, their way of processing the information they get from festooning, is a mystery to me.