All sorts of bees and pollinators
Currently I am putting together an ambitious plan of combining my artistic skills with my passion for beekeeping by producing desirable paintings, prints and greeting cards of honeybees and other bees. I am an active beekeeper and have already received an award for my bee photography. I intend to transfer to canvas interpretations of the images that I have been capturing with a lens and have them available commercially.
Honeybee ( Apis mellifera ) collecting pollen and nectar on a Tree Aeonium flower. Fluid acrylic, 16 x 16cm
There just isn’t enough #beeart out there for my liking. I must admit there are plenty of cute #bumblebees on Instagram but I am a beekeeper. That is, I am minding the wild species of bee that produces honey. I love watching them and am fascinated by their industrious behaviour. I have been doing #beephotography for a few years but decided it was time to devout more time and attention to #beepainting.
Some of the income will help to raise funds for my local beekeepers association and some will be donated to my chosen conservation charity Friends of the Earth. As well as my beautiful honey bees, I also intend to paint and record images of other wild bees. The two types (genera) of bees we all know are Apis (honeybees ; one species in the UK ) and Bombus (bumblebees, of which 24 species in UK, 7 common). Solitary bees are less well recognised although we have about 256 species in the UK. Unfortunately 25 species of our solitary bees have now been recorded as extinct in the UK.
I therefore feel I have a duty to use my art and it’s message to not only promote the practice of beekeeping but also to heighten awareness to the fragile existence of these other crop and flower pollinators that are essentially vital to our own future wellbeing.
Honeybee on golden-mane flower Fluid acrylics 16 x 16cm on paper. Giclee prints available
Since my retirement from healthcare last year I have been able to progress my ambitions. In particular I can devote a lot more of my time as an #emergingartist with my main interest lying with #landscapepainting and #acryliclandscape using #watercolourtechniques and #fluidacrylics .
I have also been able to realise my ambition as a #beekeeper and since relocating from Edinburgh to Thornbury near Bristol I have joined the South Gloucestershire Beekeepers Association. This has allowed me to gain more experience in caring for bees.
I have already taken an interest in #beephotography and this includes studies of #bumblebees . I now have the desire to translate the images I have captured on to paper and canvas. I hope in some little way these paintings and experiences and increasing knowledge of the life of #honeybees🐝 that I intend to convey here on #beesofinstagram will heighten awareness to others. I hope I can pass on the pleasures of #beekeeping and the dreadful plight that other species of #solitarybees and other #wildbees are currently suffering.
The value of bees as pollinators cannot be overstated. The #honeybee🐝 is quite efficient as a #pollinator but the role of other solitary bees and #bumblebees is actually understated. These other bee species are generally hairier than #apismellifera and more pollen grains will adhere to them.
The honeybee has specially adapted hairs on its back legs than act as bilateral pollen pouches that the bee can push pollen into using its middle legs for transport back to the hive.
Different plants have various different sizes and colours of pollen grains. For instance the pollen of the horse chestnut tree is a very distinctive bright red colour. The art and science of identifying different pollen brought back to the hive is one of our pleasures as #beekeepers .
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