Diary of a 𝕭𝖊𝖊 ꕷ𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖙𝖚𝖆𝖗𝐲 Set Up

𝕽𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉 𝕺𝖓𝖊: 𝚲𝖓𝖈𝖍𝖔𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖆𝖈𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖘𝖕𝖔𝖙

𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆

𝔹𝔼𝔼𝕊 & 𝔾ℝ𝔸𝕍𝕀𝕋𝕐

What's amazing in these little creatures is that they can function perfectly in full daylight, as well as in the pitch black.
Even more fascinating is that their entire life cycle resembles the dark night of the soul, every life phase sounds like a new initiation into the temple towards the sun outside the hive. The official last phase or 'job' of a honeybee is to go foraging, which means going out in the world, flying towards the sun. Only then, or a little before when it can do the guardian task or protecting the hive, it sees the 'front porch' of it but will not leave it until it goes on it's pollinating missions.

So most of their life is in the dark, to end with the symphony of the flowers in the light as a grand finale.

Inside, they rely on gravity to fulfill all the necessities of the flourishing of the nest, foremost: building the combs.
And that is how God gifted them with the ability to construct such meticulous sacred geometrical wax combs, to such a precision that the rows inbetween are just enough to fit two bees back-to-back working simultaenously or passing through. They demonstrate a supreme intelligence of architecture that has no equivalent on the planet.

Therefore, to set them up to an optimal start, we made sure the foundation is level, with a slight tilt towards the front to help any rain or moisture drain out the entrance instead of in.

𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

_{The wooden board that lays on the foundation is the bottom of the Hive, on top of that will be stacked all the hollow boxes. This bottom is the ground floor so to say for the colony and they will pass through the sloped hallway to fly in & out.}

𝔹𝔼𝔼𝕊 & 𝕊𝕆𝕃𝔸ℝ ℂ𝕆𝕄ℙ𝔸𝕊𝕊

The way bees see the sun makes many jaleous, as they see the sun as long as it is illuminating the face of the earth. Cloudy, rainy or not, they see it anytime. Bees, like many insects have polarized vision and they can see ultraviolet light so they are always sure to be able to rely on the sun for orientation. That's why the sun is the solar pillar, and everything up to the famous waggle dances encode that important variable.
The best for a hive entrance is to be faced south, so that the sun journey is to be seen all day, especially for the foraging bees that can jump start right out the hive and see the Sun immediately to know which direction to shoot off to.

𝐁𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐇 𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓

This picture shows is the mockup installation we did to double check the level, as well as the stability of the ground etc when handling the roof. The bottom was glued to the foundation so that the hive doesn't slip or be displaced by wind, bumped into by animals etc.
We filled the entire foundation inclusive the edge of the wall with chopped dead branches, leaves and pine cones, as well as shells for adorning the entrance. @ravenking13 came up with the idea, as it mimics a forest habitat. As you can also see, we have a Buddha statue, and later you'll be able to spot a little golden Shiva statue guarding the back of the hive.

𝕽𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉 ͳ𝖜𝖔: 𝕭𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖎𝖓 𝕮𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖗𝖘!

𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆

_{This Hive system is called 'Warré' after a french priest and beekeeper who designed a model that would prove the closest to their natural habitat and mores. @ravenking13 got the genius inspiration to buy them with windows and even one box with windows on all sides to watch them without opening the hive every time!}

From the start, we wanted to adorn the hive, especially grace it with vibrant colors that celebrate the beauty of nature and flowers and the world that would not be possible without bees.

So we started laser engraving a few spots, but then decided to just go and do acrylic pourings as it is one of our favorite methods, since it's not mentally orchestrated and the colors just do what spirit wants them to do. Also, pourings have this beautiful texture that is so reminiscent of wood and many organic surfaces across micro or macro levels. It's always exciting to find out what the final painting is when the colors are dropped on the canvas.
So we mixed some colors, taped down all the openings and windows, and got right into splashing them with acrylic paint.

𝔹𝔼𝔼𝕊 𝕍𝕀𝕊𝕀𝕆ℕ

Many beekeepers paint their hives a solid color, or don't decorate their hives at all. I've heard someone pretend that ornamenting bee hives is just for human's pleasure.

From what we know today, bees have a total different vision than we humans. Like mentioned earlier, they can see the full ultraviolet range and flowers show them secret patterns that our eyes cannot fathom.
There are some examples like red that may show up as black to them, and blue is said to be the color they are the most attracted to.
All the both of us cared about was to have a decoration that makes them feel safe and happy to fly back to every day.

Only when we had already colored them all we found out that said guy apparently was wrong; from data studying the visual cognition of bees, it was found out that since bees are on a speedy flight back home, their vision is very sensitive to strong "interceptive" visual cues.
It seems they can speed up or slow down on time and orient themselves easier with vivid, recognizable patterns that they associate with the hives. So some sources do recommended to mark the hive with a drawing or some unique sign that cannot be mistaken for some random thing in nature. I guess it's similar to a family home; you want the children to recognize it right away and not get confused by the entire same-looking block.

𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇

I wanted to draw some illustration by hand since the start, as a sort of personal welcome gift. It has been ages, literally decades since I had not used watercolors, and mostly I just left my drawings to the sketch phase as I never felt comfortable enough with coloring and mixing colors. However, I felt drawn to get my hands at figurative adornment and I picked up the pencil to draw a scenery on the front wall of the roof.
I had no idea what kind of picture to draw, and just thought a temple always has pillars. So I drew a pillar on the left side and it all streamed from there. First, I started to ornament it a little and then came the two birds interlacing at the top. I let my fingers dance over the wood in the directions they felt the most drawn to and patterns they fulfilled, it all became a sort of visual wish for our planet, as a tribute and thanks to the Bee people. All the flowers, mountains, valleys and deserts they pollinate, to bring all beings together at the center of the Oasis of Peace. In the middle a golden and juicy comb with the third eye in the middle.

The picture has washed away a little with the rain, but here is the result:

It was incredibly fun to experiment and see the colors mixing together creating visuals I never would have thought of, so I took the other side and tried myself at flower painting. I wanted it to be a sort of fresco vibrant with colored flowers, with the engraved bee in the middle, and a towering vesica pisces with the colors of the rainbow / chakras. That was really fun part, as I let the red and yellow merge for orange, and the yellow and blue for green, and the blue with red inside for purple. I let everyone do their own conclusion on how awesomely the play of colors animate the chakra coloring system.

𝕽𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉 ͳ𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊: 𝚲𝖓𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 ꕷ𝖕𝖆𝖈𝖊

𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐒

It's very important for honeybees to have an availability of flowers that bloom continuously throughout the summer until the latest before frost. Most flowers outside, from trees or the forest are there anyways for the bees, but the biggest emphasis in our garden was to have something for them when it is scarce outside and in neighbouring gardens. So we chose to plant hyacinths as they are the first ones to emerge in early spring; a season where there is not enough bloom yet to fully satiate a colony.
Also we got some thyme, lavender and oregano, long time plant friends of bees, and also resistant flowerers. For the past month, we've also sown many flower seeds of all kinds and heights around the hive territory, that will hopefully create a strong fence of divine smells.

_{On the parts that were not painted, we burned the wood, as that is a great method for desinfecting and proofing the wood for resistance outdoors.}

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

_{The first Hive avidly waiting to welcome its first inhabitants}

The hardest part was being patient. Having everything ready and set for at least two or three weeks prior, it made it almost unbearable. To serve us with humour, the universe even arranged a fantom delivery that had us waiting like children for Santa from morning to evening, only to find out there had been an internal communication error and the package was not due to be sent out until the week thereafter!

𝕽𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖉 𝕱𝖔𝖚𝖗: 𝕺𝖕𝖊𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕲𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖘

The Bees arrived around 10 days ago, on a chilly morning, but as soon as we poured them into the hive, the sun was shining all day. What a heartfelt welcome from the Celestial Fire in the Sky!
At last, here the entrance pulsating with an array of buzzing graces from the first ray of light, to the last ray of light, every day since then.

I captured this picture this afternoon in front of the entrance; seeing and feeling how at ease they seem to feel at their new home fills my heart full with joy.

Thank you very much for reading me, I hope you had a pleasant reading cruise alongside the journey of the creation of this Beehive.

If you are curious to know more, here are some other posts about our Bees.

۞ Bees & Mushrooms - Preparing to test out Mushroom-Extract Bee Feed for Upcoming Hives. ۞
, by @ravenking13

۞ Preparing a Bee Temple ۞
, by me

۞ Lessons from a Living Heart - Feeding Bees with Video. ۞
, by @ravenking13

Bless your soul @ravenking13 for modeling on my documentary pictures & blessing me with the gift of this adventure, osharet hastam!

May y'all Slay with Love brothers and sisters,

Kali