Checking the Hives

Yesterday Abelisto did his first hive inspection. The bees had had nearly a week to get settled in in the hives and it was time to check on them.

It went very well, no stings, no bees damaged or killed or even angered, comb in production on several top bars in the top bar hive and almost all of the frames in the traditional hive. Abelisto even managed to find the queen in the top bar hive. I took photos. You can see them and read Abelisto's thoughts on the process at Canaries in a Coalmine: Week 1 - The First Inspection.

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Technorati Profile

Successful Party

Saturday night Abelisto & I had a Cinco de Mayo party at our house. 34 Co-workers, spouses and children came to our house between the hours of 6pm and 10pm or so. The guests were invited to bring either a dessert or a beverage if they wanted to do so. We now have so much alcohol (in the form of all sorts of beer, Irish whiskey, Mexican brandy, and tequilla) in our house that it will take years to consume it all - neither Abelisto nor I drink alcohol in any format, although I do taste things just to experience them.

I think the success of our parties (this was our third) is the mix of people that we invite. There are people from all areas of the university - except perhaps, upper administration. Both Ablisto and I have friends across the university - Abelisto has been there for nearly 25 years, and I am fairly gregarious and outgoing.

The party mostly consisted of people enjoying lots of Mexican food and great conversations with people they do not see often. The semester is nearly over (finals last Friday, Saturday, tomorrow and Tuesday - then we are done until August) and it felt really good to celebrate a number of things. I am not off for the summer, of course, not being faculty, but I enjoy most any occasion to get together with these people.

The hit of the party was Abelisto's apiary - Beelandia. People were going in and out all evening to watch the bees doing the bee-thing. It was good to see people listening to Abelisto talk about sustainable beekeeping.

The next party will be in the fall. I think that we could have up to 40 people in the house. We may end up with that many. Our parties are evermore popular.

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More Bird Art

WoodBird, 2008, encaustic on driftwood, 6" x 2" x 30"

Another piece working with bird imagery - albeit in a very abstract manner. Although it is not very apparent in the photograph, the lines for the bird follow the grain patterns (head and body) and cracks (legs and feet) in the wood. You can sort of see this in the abstract feet of the bird. On the actual piece of driftwood the grain is very noticeable - with some of the grain swollen by the long submersion in the Mississippi River, and some parts eaten away by that submersion. In the photograph the dark circles are knots in the wood.

Some of the colors here are from my own paints. The colors that I have been making have mostly been from pre-ground purchased pigments that I have mixed with melted beeswax and damar resin.

When Abelisto's hives get established I will try using our own beeswax and propolis instead of damar resin. Propolis is a substance created by bees that is made up of resins found around the blossoms and buds on trees and at sites of wounds on trees. The bees change it chemically a bit, and use it as "glue" for sealing gaps in the hive and covering foreign objects. They use it to weatherproof the hive. Propolis is what gives beeswax its color and odor. Abelisto thinks that early encaustic painters probably did not add tree resins to their paints, but that they incorporated propolis into the mixture. It could have been purposely added, but most likely it was just part of what would have been considered wax, which would normally happen in a wild or unframed hive. If an analysis of the paints in early encaustic paintings was done, the scientists may have mistakenly thought the resins in the paints had been added - especially if the research was done by someone who did not know that much about bees. If a person was using purified beeswax you would need to add resins. The resins keep the wax from "blooming" when subjected to temperature changes (think refrigerated chocolate bar).

Just thinking about it I realized that since I am mixing my paints using unpurified beeswax I may not need to be adding damar crystals anyway. The ratio of wax to damar crystals should be between 8:1 and 10:1 by weight.

Of course I could be totally wrong about this. I will have to experiment with it. One thing is for certain; any paintings I do will certainly be subjected to pretty substantial temperature changes. Right now the house is hovering around 60 degrees (on purpose, that is what we set the thermostat at - outside is below zero, for the 13th day in a row), and during the summer it sometimes gets above 90 inside (we do not use air conditioning). So if my paints are going to be prone to blooming I am certain to see it.

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