Lost and Found in E11

Stachys palustris  ?  4/8/2015

Linaria purpurea ? - 21st July 2015

11th July 2015.

.....a honeybee-hive entrance, 14th June 2015 I inspected our two beehives on 14th June and again on 21st June. One of the resident colonies was doing very well in that it had a very fecund queen, a large population of worker and drone bees, and an increasing quantity of capped honey stores. What was also very encouraging about this colony is that it did not seem to be making much of an effort to swarm. Our recent weekly inspections have found only a few queen cups and just one drawn out queen cell; which was empty as in there was no egg laid in it. Both of our colonies are based on new queens produced as a result of our bee colonies swarming in 2014. The second and lesser of our colonies did not over-winter well,  and emerged in the spring, as it did, weakened by a varroa infestation and an inappropriate over-wintering hive arrangement. That said, it (the colony) seems to be recovering. The queen has developed a good (egg) laying rate and the number of brood frames occupied by

Lysos, Cyprus. 15th April 2015. I visited Cyprus in April. I photographed just a fraction of the splendid flora I witnessed while travelling across the island. I was surprised to have taken an unusual image of a honeybee foraging on what I think is a variety of Oxalis. My identification of the plant might be mistaken however the correct plant identification may not be as relevant as the technicalities which account for the peculiar visual/photographic phenomenon of the bee's wings caught in motion as they are. I took the picture using a Samsung smartphone camera. The settings of that device - model GT-S5830i - were, for the above image: 5 mega pixel / 1200x1600 focal length 3.55 f number 2.6 macro I'm intrigued by the fluid ripples or pulses of the bee's wings in contrast to the clarity, solidity and suspended (near) stillness of the bee's body, its tongue extended in anticipation of the nectar. I don't know how odd or extraordinary the effect

Field Study's Man in E11 traverses the allotment via 'The Wormholes of Ceres' and recreates a plot of  wriggling viccissitudes and muddy factoids.  Earthworm casting - 22/2/15 I was abandoned in the remote and adipose constellation of, ‘The Humming Garden of Vulpecula’. I have no idea how long I languished there in the putrefaction of its mushy science fiction. I assume I was there to study the cosmic significance of the decaying field of a buried fox. While I was immersed in that field, ambiguities of time and temporality – of Chronos and Kairos – played on my mind. I think they still are. It is possible I became a subject of study by mysterious forces acting through the reservoir of the vulpine corpse. It is a sad fact and an equally sad fiction that I am a character issued forth from the mind of Julian Beere. Had I been out of the mind of, say, Stanislaw Lem, I, Field Study’s Man in E11, could be, instead, ‘Dr. Kris Kelvin’, from the novel, ‘Solaris’.  

Field Studies Man in E11 engages his half-boiled vegetable matter in a propagational dilemma, and indulges in his manurial preoccupations yet again.  Time was when we could sow broad beans directly into the soil and witness their glorious springtime emergence. This winter has seen our beans disappear from our raised beds well before that welcome leafy transformation. Where have they gone? Who or what has taken the beans? Our suspicions lay with the mice because of the precision, thoroughness and neatness of the excavations. The delicate shell like remains of beans lay on the surface by regimented holes and, occasionally, a dismembered bean sprout or two. The remains have caused grave expressions and vengeful glances towards where the little ones might be hiding. Row upon row has been plundered.   How many mice are there that might have caused such consistent damage? If not a plague then indeed we may be afflicted by a very nasty bout of mice. As our broad beans dig