Tree Bumblebee tribute: bee 69, Bombus Hypnorum

I've been hard at work lately,  making a box full of poem cards for Fifty Bees, an exhibition that links art, poetry and ecology, thanks to fifty different kinds of bee which can all be found in the UK.  'My' bee is Bombus Hypnorum, the Tree Bumblebee.

​Here is Lydia Needle's gorgeous representation of the bee in wool, readly to fly to Swindon for the Fity Bees  exhibition at the Richard Jefferies Museum.

I started by researching the bees' five eyes, how they gather information about colours, shapes and movements through both simple and compound eyes. I made cards with hexagonal windows to mirror the shape of the ommatidia, each one of which contains one of the many lenses of a compound eye, 

​I have written about the queen bees' winter sleep, and about some of the things the worker bees might look out for as they are born in spring to start a new cycle of life, exploring their surroundings, foraging and responding to the inviting patterns and colours of the plants they visit.

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I've used materials in the colours of the bee: black, ginger and white. And I've experimented with hand-made translucent paper to create a sense of seeing differently. Now all i have to do is to get the finished work safely to Swindon, where the Fify Bees exhibition will be open from 2 - 24 June. It will be full of amazing bee-related artworks - do visit if you can.