Field Study's Man in E11 tries to report with a feather light heart
Field Study's Man in E11 was grieving over the loss of a whole colony of bees or "beeres" as he prefers to say. I asked him to quit using that pun; it annoys me greatly and this is precisely what seems to encourage him to persist in using it. I wonder how you would describe that as a personality trait? Mindf****r? I forgave him for the mind-fiddling as I knew he was traumatised by the loss. However we were 7 weeks into 2014 and, but for a crap cut-up neo-beat pastiche, there had not been a new year report from the allotment apiary. I insisted he engage his stiff upper lip and "make the damn report (Field Study's) man!!!"
I believe in tough love and I was not going to tolerate the lip wobbled speech of a pathetic gibbering field student. Every wobbled "w", fumbled "f" and tongue tied "t" (wtf) met a gruff demand for him to go back to the beginning and start again. It has taken us a long time to piece this report together from the tedium of our prosaic mind field.
In January one of our hives and resident colony of honeybees expired. Our brief intrusion, for the purpose of administering oxalic acid (to treat against varroa mites), found us lamenting the loss. We found the queen bee rigid, clinging to the top edge of a brood frame. There was in attendance a scant cortege of worker bees similarly in a state of rigor mortis. We made an on-the-spot autopsy by which we concluded the hive was dilapidated and had not given sufficient protection against the elements, in particular the wet. We had, perhaps unnecessarily, provided the colony with an emergency feed of fondant, which, in the dilapidation of the hive, had partially liquefied, and so could have poisoned, by dysentery, many of the bees. In the colder temperatures of winter bees cannot defecate and an over-watery feed may become a toxic faecal overload.
Field Study's Man in E11 broke down in tears as he recalled happier times bathing in the sunlit ablutions of his beloved "beeres" way back in December 2013. "Why?" he moaned.
"Pull yourself together (Field Study's) man!" I scowled.
We decided to collect the remains of the honeybee cluster by scooping them up with a paper coffee cup tossed in from the world beyond the bucolic seclusion of our apiary. There we were on an allotment in 21st century Chingford mourning the sacred insects, grown from the tears of the long lost sun god, Ra. His hatched tears link the natural world to the underworld. Our bees would continue their journey into The Land of the Dead in a thrown away Costa coffee cup; a solemnly held sarcophagus.
Sacred insects grown from the tears of the sun god Ra! I suggested he get a grip and drop the flowery bunkum and cods-wallop of new age mystification. He shot me a look that told me there was more of this to come and that he was determined to make it his report.
It was damp and cold. The persistent misty drizzle leached the spirits of the field expedition. We sorted through the mouldy remains of the bee colony's stores and extracted those which might be kept for other hives. We continued with a funerary procession to the apiary shed to deposit the salvaged honeycomb, and make ready the entourage of the deceased queen and workers down to the Cann Hall Road of Truth where Osiris would weigh the hearts of the sisters against the white feather of Ma'at. For their souls to continue the drift to The Field of Reeds, their hearts would have to be lighter than the feather. If heavier, Ammut would gobble them into non-existence.
I stared at the field student, raised my eyebrows and grimaced, with dishonest hand on a heavy heart, in mock pain, as if to plead for a less fantastic account.
We returned to the site of the dilapidated hive. It's floor was littered with the chilled corpses of thousands of worker bees. What were we to do with the decrepit furniture? A voice from the back of your head suggested a fire - a funeral pyre indeed. We gathered what remained and transported it all to a water-logged area of the site, an area which is close to a newly formed stream from a water table bursting out and along the seams of this hill side valley edge. The gloaming descended upon us as we finished preparing the pile of wood, abandoned honeycomb, wax, propolis and bee corpses to ignite. Stillness in the twilight allowed the sparks from a rusting lighter to catch a handful of dry straw, and consume it in a bundle of flames to be dropped hurriedly into the centre of the ceraceous pyre. A glow of entangled withering stems diminished and fell away, tenebrous, as if sucking in what little light remained around us, a dark star, a black hole. But from out of the critical mass of darknesses, a morbid cluster of transient souls, there emerged an ecdysial moment, a shedding of darkness, incandescence chewed and licked it's way out.
The field student began to dance, his hands together, as if in prayer, swimming through the air, as if to recreate the motions of the flames as they grew and engulfed the remains of the hive. A man on fire, he clicked, cracked, spat and moaned, his eyes wide open as if transfixed. In bizarre spasms of genuflection and gesticulation he, a manic raver, burst open his arms and twinkled his fingers through the air before gyrating back into a new flame.
The remains of the hive were soon consumed in an inferno. The flaming mass bubbled and spat, issuing hissing gases, wavering in a newly arrived breeze. There were rapid successions of pops followed by a rising swarm and floating drift of minuscule embers soon vanishing into the night sky . They must have been the ascending souls of the bees.
The field student appeared to be on the verge of complete loss to some far out reverie and I was close to losing my patience with his confabulations. I emptied a bucket of water over him to douse his mental conflagration. He was very unhappy about the abrupt ending to his one man mystery play; a resurrection of a colony of honeybees he insisted. We both steamed (inevitably). I was furious about his neglect of the documentation of the beekeeping. "Will we ever become a competent beekeeper if you persist in losing yourself in such nonsense?" I pleaded with him.
I'm trying to create a site specific mythology; one which connects the myriad properties of our experiences on site. Look (he lead me back along slippery muddy paths to the boggy site of the pyre) all the embers, the souls of the bees have transmogrified. They have become the seeds and seedlings of Rose Bay Willow Herb - 'Fireweed', if you didn't know; every seedling is growing in a place where an ember landed.
I looked around and was startled by the prodigious emanation of 'fireweed' - especially considering we had, we thought, been diligent last year in going around the site and removing a lot of the plants before their seed heads set. Field Study's Man in E11 is convinced this 'fireweed' has emanated by more metaphysical and mysterious means*. I decided not to tell the field student that the Costa sarcophagus arrived at Base Camp Beere, in transit to the Cann Hall Road of Truth, carrying bees that were not 'dead'. Had they ever been dead? Undead? Zombie honeybees?
What!!!! (Damn! It's really difficult keeping a secret from one's self) The bees were alive?
No. I don't know. They were ....undead, may be?
Just when I finished inserting that question mark into the report there was a loud bang at the door. I caught a glimpse through the window of man of a peculiarly green complexion standing at the door in the pouring rain while the storm banged at the door on his behalf. In our terror there was a distinct chewing quality to the thunder that convinced us our heart was being judged for it's lightness of being.
"Pull yourself together (Field Study's) man!" I scowled.
We decided to collect the remains of the honeybee cluster by scooping them up with a paper coffee cup tossed in from the world beyond the bucolic seclusion of our apiary. There we were on an allotment in 21st century Chingford mourning the sacred insects, grown from the tears of the long lost sun god, Ra. His hatched tears link the natural world to the underworld. Our bees would continue their journey into The Land of the Dead in a thrown away Costa coffee cup; a solemnly held sarcophagus.
Sacred insects grown from the tears of the sun god Ra! I suggested he get a grip and drop the flowery bunkum and cods-wallop of new age mystification. He shot me a look that told me there was more of this to come and that he was determined to make it his report.
It was damp and cold. The persistent misty drizzle leached the spirits of the field expedition. We sorted through the mouldy remains of the bee colony's stores and extracted those which might be kept for other hives. We continued with a funerary procession to the apiary shed to deposit the salvaged honeycomb, and make ready the entourage of the deceased queen and workers down to the Cann Hall Road of Truth where Osiris would weigh the hearts of the sisters against the white feather of Ma'at. For their souls to continue the drift to The Field of Reeds, their hearts would have to be lighter than the feather. If heavier, Ammut would gobble them into non-existence.
I stared at the field student, raised my eyebrows and grimaced, with dishonest hand on a heavy heart, in mock pain, as if to plead for a less fantastic account.
We returned to the site of the dilapidated hive. It's floor was littered with the chilled corpses of thousands of worker bees. What were we to do with the decrepit furniture? A voice from the back of your head suggested a fire - a funeral pyre indeed. We gathered what remained and transported it all to a water-logged area of the site, an area which is close to a newly formed stream from a water table bursting out and along the seams of this hill side valley edge. The gloaming descended upon us as we finished preparing the pile of wood, abandoned honeycomb, wax, propolis and bee corpses to ignite. Stillness in the twilight allowed the sparks from a rusting lighter to catch a handful of dry straw, and consume it in a bundle of flames to be dropped hurriedly into the centre of the ceraceous pyre. A glow of entangled withering stems diminished and fell away, tenebrous, as if sucking in what little light remained around us, a dark star, a black hole. But from out of the critical mass of darknesses, a morbid cluster of transient souls, there emerged an ecdysial moment, a shedding of darkness, incandescence chewed and licked it's way out.
The field student began to dance, his hands together, as if in prayer, swimming through the air, as if to recreate the motions of the flames as they grew and engulfed the remains of the hive. A man on fire, he clicked, cracked, spat and moaned, his eyes wide open as if transfixed. In bizarre spasms of genuflection and gesticulation he, a manic raver, burst open his arms and twinkled his fingers through the air before gyrating back into a new flame.
The remains of the hive were soon consumed in an inferno. The flaming mass bubbled and spat, issuing hissing gases, wavering in a newly arrived breeze. There were rapid successions of pops followed by a rising swarm and floating drift of minuscule embers soon vanishing into the night sky . They must have been the ascending souls of the bees.
The field student appeared to be on the verge of complete loss to some far out reverie and I was close to losing my patience with his confabulations. I emptied a bucket of water over him to douse his mental conflagration. He was very unhappy about the abrupt ending to his one man mystery play; a resurrection of a colony of honeybees he insisted. We both steamed (inevitably). I was furious about his neglect of the documentation of the beekeeping. "Will we ever become a competent beekeeper if you persist in losing yourself in such nonsense?" I pleaded with him.
I'm trying to create a site specific mythology; one which connects the myriad properties of our experiences on site. Look (he lead me back along slippery muddy paths to the boggy site of the pyre) all the embers, the souls of the bees have transmogrified. They have become the seeds and seedlings of Rose Bay Willow Herb - 'Fireweed', if you didn't know; every seedling is growing in a place where an ember landed.
I looked around and was startled by the prodigious emanation of 'fireweed' - especially considering we had, we thought, been diligent last year in going around the site and removing a lot of the plants before their seed heads set. Field Study's Man in E11 is convinced this 'fireweed' has emanated by more metaphysical and mysterious means*. I decided not to tell the field student that the Costa sarcophagus arrived at Base Camp Beere, in transit to the Cann Hall Road of Truth, carrying bees that were not 'dead'. Had they ever been dead? Undead? Zombie honeybees?
What!!!! (Damn! It's really difficult keeping a secret from one's self) The bees were alive?
No. I don't know. They were ....undead, may be?
Just when I finished inserting that question mark into the report there was a loud bang at the door. I caught a glimpse through the window of man of a peculiarly green complexion standing at the door in the pouring rain while the storm banged at the door on his behalf. In our terror there was a distinct chewing quality to the thunder that convinced us our heart was being judged for it's lightness of being.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_Osiris_edit1.svg#filelinks
* - rhizomes?
* - rhizomes?
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