Backyard Beehive Adventures

We had a very adventurous day at the studio Monday!  Jennifer the Bee Wrangler came over to help move a bee hive that was living in a tree in the yard.  The tree has been dropping limbs and badly needs to be trimmed but the tree guys will not go near it until the bees are gone.  I have been interested in bee keeping for a while and really wanted to keep the hive.   I've even been making honey comb like sculptures, subconsciously inviting bees into my life.  Miraculously, a friend pointed me to Jennifer, a local Houston bee wrangler, who will come and take the bees, allowing them 2 months to regenerate their hive and then bring them back to install in a new box hive in my yard.  Check out Jennifer's site and blog at www.thebeewrangler.com.  The images below to give a glimpse of the amazing process she uses to get the bees out of the hive.   Here's a hint: it involves a shop-vac!

subconscious sculpture

Step 1: making smoke to calm the bees

Step 2: Cutting off the honeycombs

Step 3: The vacuum

Step 4: Cutting the hole bigger

Step 5: Searching for the queen and pulling out more honeycombs from inside the hole

Step 6: Making sure the queen did not fall out!

Step 7: Checking out the honeycombs

Looks like the queen is in there!

Hive relocation SUCCESS!!  Thank you Jennifer!!

METRO North Line designs at MFAH

Come see the final designs for the Metro expansion at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The work I did for both Burnett and Boundary stations are on display in the hallway in the lower level of the Beck building. Also check out the great article in Houston Culture Map here.

To see images of the designs check out Metro on my Current Projects page.

Thank you to Sara Kellner at Kellner Consultants and Arts in Transit for putting on such a lovely opening reception.