beekeeping

news: solo show announcement /  by kelly heaton

Detail of "The Beekeeper," 2015. Kinetic sculpture made with steel, cast resin, brass, electronics, wood and paint. Approximate dimensions are 60"(W) x 132" (H). Kelly Heaton

Detail of "The Beekeeper," 2015. Kinetic sculpture made with steel, cast resin, brass, electronics, wood and paint. Approximate dimensions are 60"(W) x 132" (H). Kelly Heaton

I am pleased to announce that my latest body of work, "Pollination," will open on September 12 at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, 31 Mercer Street, NYC.  The show addresses many facets of pollination as a fertile exchange, including bees, commerce, human relationships, spirituality and technology.  Works include large-scale sculpture, kinetic sculpture, works on paper and perfume.  A public reception will be hosted at the gallery on September 12 from 6 - 8pm.  The show runs through October 24.

For more information, please sign up for my mailing list or contact Ronald Feldman Fine Arts: (212) 226-3232.

pollination: geography bee /  by kelly heaton

I've recently started an experiment with my bees that involves a wood frame and wax foundation in the shape of the United States (lower 48).  In two weeks, they've made a lot of progress and show a knack for US geography without any prompting on my part.  California and the Pacific NW are extremely popular and apparently too small, as the bees have built burr comb to make the west coast bigger.  They have built-up the Rocky Mountains as the high point of their map; and constructed a very large island off the coast of the Northeast.  Perhaps an enlargement of overcrowded Manhattan?  Otherwise, there's not much happening on the East coast.  They've made some progress on the northern section of the Appalachian mountains, maybe a Catskills retreat for Manhattan bees to get away.  Florida gets zero attention because the peninsula is too small for bees to make it worth their effort.  The Southeast, Midwest and Texas are basically flat but above sea level (if you imagine the wood frame to be their ocean).  Nearly all of the nectar and pollen are stored in the bread basket of our nation.  Good job little geography bees!

pollination: meet the new queen /  by kelly heaton

See into a young beehive. This video was shot with an inspector's videoscope, so the frame rate is low and makes it look choppy. Nonetheless, the videoscope allowed me to record activity inside of one of my new hives - and by chance, I caught footage of their new queen only two days after installation from a package that shipped in from Georgia. You can recognize her because her abdomen is larger, more of a pale yellow and her wings are set out to the side instead of folded onto her back. My apologies that she is not marked, this would make it much easier to recognize her ... and I need to take care of this before the hive population increases. Notice areas in which the honeycomb is shallow and others where it is fully formed. This is because I gave the bees some frames with new foundation mixed with frames that already had drawn comb with honey. If possible, I try to feed my bees with honey instead of sugar water because it's better for them; and I have many frames with honey from my hives that sadly died in late winter of this year.

Below are images from the package installation, two days before this video was taken.  
Photos by Sarah Loy, 2015.

pollinators: bees licking honey /  by kelly heaton

Happy day! My bees arrived after their long road trip from Georgia to Virginia. Because it's raining and bees dislike dampness, I will install them tomorrow when the weather is dry. Plus it's fun to keep them overnight in my studio and get to know them. This video shows them lick honey that I smeared onto the outside of the packages. Packaged bees are shipped with sugar water to feed them in transit, but they much prefer honey -- as this video shows.

open studio: gut chakra, flora and fauna /  by kelly heaton

Detail of The Beekeeper, 2013 - 2015

Detail of The Beekeeper, 2013 - 2015

For my upcoming show Pollination (September 2015), I am working on a large sculpture called "The Beekeeper."  Energy nodes (aka chakras) of the human body are represented therein.  This image shows a detail of The Beekeeper's gut chakra, comprised of hybrid plant and insect electronics on the traditional green circuit board, or ground plane.  I experience the gut chakra as distinct from the solar plexus, an opinion that I mention because most people consider them one and the same.  I usually see the gut chakra as indigo blue; but here, yellow light from The Beekeeper's bright solar plexus causes the blue to show up green.  More on that later.  Kelly Heaton, 2013 - 2015

pollinators: bienenhaus /  by kelly heaton

Swiss German, German and Slovenian apiaries; Tibetan and Nepalese prayer flags

pollinators: grim dead bees /  by kelly heaton

My bee yard is grim.  Last Fall, one hive died from the cold and the another just left.  I was really sad to lose them … I loved my bees, which may be hard to understand unless you keep them yourself.  I will start again this Spring with local nucs instead of Georgia packages (2014).