Saving the Bees at Photo Art Friday

  

 

"Unique among all God's creatures, only the honeybee improves the environment and preys not on any other species." ~ Royden Brown


"If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live." ~ Albert Einstein

 

 

Colony collapse disorder in bee populations has increased this year, wiping out as much as half of commercial honeybees. The New York Times has this story as front page news in their print version, but you can read online how this problem will mean smaller harvest and higher prices on produce. 

 

 

Ingredients Magazine has an interesting article just out on the continuing problem of  our Disappearing Honey Bees. 

 

 

 

 

We rely on honey bees for one-third of our food supply (one out of every three bites), so when honey bees are in danger, we’re all in danger.

 

 

 

Honey is the only food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water; and it's the only food that contains "pinocembrin", an antioxidant associated with improved brain functioning.

 

 

 

The average worker bee produces about 1/12th teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

 

 

 

A hive of bees will fly 90,000 miles, the equivalent of three orbits around the earth to collect 1 kg (not quite 3 cups) of honey.


A honey bee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.

 

 

additional links:

Mysterious, Massive Disappearance/Death of the US Honey Bees  

 

 

Honey Bee Die-off Alarms Beekeepers, Crop Growers and Researchers

 

 

 

 

Bee friending the bees - Ways to help

• promote bee habitat - plants and flowers
• plant nectar producing plants
• do not spray insecticide
• wherever possible do not mow flowering plants (dandelions are a life saver for bees)
• support research - $
• gardening for honeybees: a bee needs water and flowers to survive. you can attract them with blue, purple, yellow or white flowers such as lilacs, honeysuckles, sunflowers and azaleas. bees also love herbs such as mint, lavender and thyme. They avoid flowers that have had the nectar and pollen bred out of them (like many contemporary rose breeds).
• consider becoming a backyard beekeeper

SOME RECOMMENDED BOOKS ON THE ART OF BACKYARD BEEKEEPING:

*The Backyard Beekeeper - Revised and Updated: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden by Kim Flottum
*The Beekeeper's Handbook by Diana Sammataro
*The Beekeeper's Bible: Bees, Honey, Recipes & Other Home Uses by Richard A Jones and Sharon Sweeney-Lynch

 

 <3   *   <3   *   <3   *   <3   *   <3   *   <3

 

linking up with:

Photo Art Friday:

"This week our optional theme/challenge is to create a piece of photo-art that contains some sort of graffiti.  It can be a photograph of graffiti that you have digitally edited or a photograph upon which you have applied text to look like graffiti.  As always, any piece of photo-art is welcome.  Following the optional challenge is not obligatory - that's why it's optional!"

Cloth Paper Scissors (Post) Challenge

in a recent previous post i showed a bit of this postcard that i have been working on. i only showed a tiny bit of it (the embroidery w/beads) and now i'm revealing it in full.

this first shot is of the card midway through which is why you can see some basting stitches holding various parts of it in place. the hexagons used are a variety of fabrics and papers. the one with the flower on it is my own artwork in watercolor pencils onto a loose vintage book page and then over-stamped with sheet music (in red).

this second photo is of the postcard (front) taken this a.m. right before getting it into the mail. there has been a variety of things added and stitched. you'll notice that the embroidery stitching that i showed on the previous post mentioned has been taken further as well. i had so many commenter's that thought the experimental fly stitch w/beads looked like beetles, bugs, insects, etc that i decided to add a bit more and before i knew it i had created some happy line dancing bees.
i used some paper tape printed with vintage postage as a binding/edging.

and this is the back of the card which shows that i have made it for a challenge put out in a past issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. the deadline was for all cards to be received in their offices by january 20th. i've cut things a bit close and am concerned about it making it on time . . .
they will be putting their favorite cards into a future issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine. i've wanted to involve myself in some of their other past challenges but for various reasons (mainly procrastination and fear) have never actually done it. when i seen this challenge i knew it was time to jump in and participate.
i'll bet they get FLOODS of gorgeous cards~!!~and i can hardly wait to see the issue that includes the cards special enough to be chosen for publication.

today's gifts include:

• playing with grand-dog Suki and my own dog River in the back yard.
• pumpkin bread (w/choc. chips) for breakfast
• finally taking the leap and submitting something to one of my favorite magazines

"If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees."

Khalil Gibran

"Alone with myself

The trees bend

to caress me

The shade hugs

my heart."

Candy Polgar

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

fall seems to be making it's presence (presents?!?) known more every day. a chill in the morning air and afternoons beckoning with wonderfully mellow sunshine in a sky that is somehow bluer than at any other time of the year.

the hollyhocks thrive during this time of the year. while photographing them i was intent on noticing the glorious light and the deep red color of these particular stalks. it was only after i uploaded the shots onto the computer that i also seen the hollyhocks had another visitor at the time . . . a surprise that made me smile.

you may have noticed that i haven't been posting much and have been pretty slow to answer most comments. this is due to most of my extra time going towards preparing myself and my household for my upcoming hip surgery. the date has been set and during the second week in october i will go in and have it done.  i'll be blogging quite a bit less for approximately the next six weeks. it may be a shorter amount of time but there is no way for me to really know and amazingly at the six week mark the holidays will be upon us all and so that may slow me down as well. 

in an effort to be more prepared i've been trying to get some of my holiday creating done early . . . i do hope to be able to share that here in my blog in bits and pieces as i can as well as do some blog-hopping to see what everyone else is up to. i may be a bit of a lurker, checking it all out when i can . . . hang in there with me. i'll do my best.

today's gifts included:

• time with the trees
• the autumn afternoon warmth
• freshly picked corn from the garden for dinner
• that blue BLUE sky

busy as a bee . . .

these shots really must be clicked on and seen large to be fully appreciated. i hope you enjoy them as much as i enjoyed taking them.
today's gifts included:

• watching the bees and other pollinators within the mint blossoms
• productive 'nesty' feelings
• a cool evening on the back deck with my family

it's arrived~!!~ this is the artist trading card that Ati made for me in return for my Nonsense and Buttons ATC. i Love it Ati ~ THANK YOU~!!!!!!!!!!!~

Ati lives in Norway and is an artist extraordinaire. treat yourself to a cup of tea while taking a few moments to browse through some of her amazing work on www.malinaplass.blogspot.com.

photos/practice from the morning garden

~a carrot quilt update~

despite my attempt to keep things to a minimum i've been completely overwhelmed by holiday preparations and life in general which is why i haven't posted more than the sunday postcard art challenge for the last few weeks. in general things are good, but the "slow setting" that MS puts me on isn't the best for keeping up with the usual holiday hubbub and so my blog posting has suffered some.

however, one of things that i have been able to continue doing is the carrot quilt stitching that i described in a previous post. and i'm delighted to have progress to report~!~

the first little indigo and white quilt measures approximately twelve and a half inches by fifteen and a quarter inches. i used some purchased antique blocks and hand sewed them into a top and then added a bleached muslin border around them. the blocks were constructed using a white muslin that had actually not yellowed or aged as much as sometimes happens with antique blocks so i rummaged through my muslin scraps and found one of my less white choices . . . despite the fact that they were not my brightest scraps i can really see the difference between what i used and what was originally used within the blocks. looking at the photo of the finished piece i can see that it turned out just fine and in fact delineates the border of the top a bit which i like. within my stash i managed to find a reproduction indigo fabric print for the binding and a shirting print that i used for the backing. all of that and a few hand quilting stitches and ta-da~!!!~ carrot quilt # 2 is finished.


carrot quilt # 3 is the result of some more purchased antique quilt blocks that i had on hand that were hand sewn together to create the top. i love the various blue fabrics used and that rogue plaid square~!~ which was pieced together from very small scraps of fabric by the original maker . . . a testament to the waste not, want not style of living that was once necessary. some of the other pieces are also "micro pieced" together too and i imagine that if you click on the photos you will be able to see some evidence of this yourself.
i found the border fabric and the backing fabric within my own stash and the binding was made from a chambray that i happen to have lots of because i like the way that it "plays" so well with the vintage and antique bits that i have accumulated. the backing fabric is the most wonderful print which includes the occasional bee and is one of my all time favorites. i chose to hand quilt the center using very simple straight diagonal lines in varying widths apart and i stitched a simple cable into the border. i like the way that the border seems to be a bit fancier in "attitude" than the simplicity of the center and think that it made for some subtle but good contrasts. this finished doll quilt measures approximately twenty two and a half inches by twenty inches.



i hope that you enjoy seeing the latest additions to my carrot quilt collection.
this evening i will begin to put the quilting stitches into carrot quilt # 4~!!~ yipppeeee~!!!!~

my daughter turned 24 years old yesterday~!~even though i took part in the whole process from the very beginning, i'm quite surprised by this event . . . i know that it's very trite and oversaid but, where oh where did the time go~!?!~ she spent her birthday discovering cloud forests in Honduras. i can't imagine it getting much better than that~!~you go girl~!!~ the late summer flowers are swaying in the hot summer sun now and once again, i wonder where the time went . . . around here, the fall season usually comes suddenly and with a vengeance, charging straight into a long cold winter so at any time we could wake up to killing frosts and ruined gardens and frozen flowers. i consider every day a gift from the summer gods and brace for the worst. every once in a great while we have a "real" warm extended fall season but it's rare. so it's hope for the best and expect the worst for us sun worshipers.

this year the strawberries that i planted did terribly. i got less than a handful of very tiny berries over the whole year. they were quite tasty and sweet but NOT in abundance. today i discovered the biggest cache yet~!~ three ripe berries~!!!~again, no bigger than my thumb nail but picture perfect anyway~!!~

earlier this summer i had an arborist tell me that the tree that i thought was a Japanese cherry tree is actually an ornamental crab apple. due to our fabulously unusual, virtually frost free spring, we have an abundance of fruit beginning to ripen. these are also very tiny and once the fall frosts have "cured" them the birds will come and feast all winter long. i'm looking forward to having an abundance of natural bird food right outside my front door and near a window from which i can watch this ongoing winter feast.

the bees know that time is of the essence and are busier than ever in their honey making endeavors.

so, between the cues given me by my garden and the local school year resuming, i have decided that it's time for me to get a bit more serious about my creative pursuits. i've been reading a book by Julia Cameron called "The Sound of Paper/Starting from Scratch" and it has become a helpful resource full of tools to get myself back on a (disciplined) creative path. i have been guilty in the past of thinking that creativity and discipline do not belong together in the same sentence but i'm quite certain i was wrong~!!~as there have been many a night that i have gone to bed feeling like, once again, i failed to catch the comet by the tail and fly simply because i don't think that i have the time or extended energy to do it. Julia councils me that i must be hyper aware of fleeting bits of time and use those productively rather than look for full days of extended energy to work with. i must consider my art important enough to set aside absolute blocks of time for. so i've begun to do just that; set aside specific scheduled time to work on various creative persuits. i've recognized and decided that not honoring these promises to myself is just as bad as not honoring promises that i've made to others. i have always considered myself careful with integrity and given to my full potential (often stretching beyond even that). at least that is how it goes when it's someone else other than myself that i've made the promises to . . . not so much when it comes down to being true to my self, particularly my artistic self.

the next few weeks will be all about re-organizing my schedules so that i can take better care of my creative side with much more loving attention than i have in the past. much easier said than done but i think i can claim a good start.

during this past week i managed to get back to my scrap management projects and finished eight tulips. i also worked on the ongoing Christmas card project for my daughter and card #4 is ready to finish and bind.

i put aside a bit of daily time to work on my sunday postcard art challenge. this is a sneak peek of what i'm working on for the fish theme that is coming up.

AND last but not least, i have uploaded my photoshop elements program. you know the one that i have been dancing around since last Christmas!?! i have acitvely begun tutorials and am making some progress in understanding all that this program will be able to add to my photography/digital art. i am getting excited~!!!~

the cactus garden is humming with activity and ablaze with color this afternoon~!~

there are two shades of pink and a bright yellow and even peach colored cactus growing here. they are a native to our area and i enjoy their dynamic show of color every year~!~

the bees and other pollinators enjoy them too~!!~

this little guy was about one quarter of an inch long and was perched contentedly on the top of this partially open peach colored blossom just surveying the whole area as if contemplating someday becoming the King.

. . . if the mantids or spiders don't catch him before he grows big enough~!~

in the center of my cactus garden i have a vintage red wheelbarrow planted with "softer" plants. this is a shot i took across the top of the lobelia that grows in there.

i know that it's not a good photo but i just love the colors and light bokeh that i captured and decided to include it anyway.

i enjoyed my short wander through the cactus garden today and am grateful for the beauty that it lends to my life.