It's almost spring here in Montalcino. On sunny mornings I've been slowly emerging from winter torpor, starting to try out some ideas for Lydia Needle's wonderful 50 Bees exhibition at the Richard Jefferies Museum, Swindon, June 2018. I've been thinking about the tree bumblebee's compound eye, a curved structure that looks almost quilted, made out of many hexagonal parts, the ommatidia. Each one is a lens that carries information to the bee's brain. Some things we can see, they can't. Some things they see, we can't. Somewhere in the middle, there's a kind of common ground.
One great thing about this project is how much more aware of bees it's making me. It's part of my morning happiness to notice a good number of bees congregating around the rosemary, which has never ceased flowering all through the hardest days of winter here. Even more joyful to count several different kinds of bee there. Still no Bombus Hypnorum so far though, but if I can I'll be patient.
One great thing about this project is how much more aware of bees it's making me. It's part of my morning happiness to notice a good number of bees congregating around the rosemary, which has never ceased flowering all through the hardest days of winter here. Even more joyful to count several different kinds of bee there. Still no Bombus Hypnorum so far though, but if I can I'll be patient.
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