What I am doing over the Holidays

I am creating two art boxes. One Round and One square.

The first one I am working on has the theme of Vintage Hollywood actors and actresses, famous movies with an overall old feel.

I use the bees wax method of applying and sealing the box. The box is decorated on all sides including inside.This box is an art object but yet also hold precious objects or things.

The square one is 8.5 inches on each side.
Here are some of the progress photos as am have been working on it for two days so far.

I have to say that I am a bit conflicted about using bees wax. I love natural products but I am hesitant when they come from animals that need them as well for their own survival. Essentially when we take the honey and the wax from the bees we are robbing them of important elements they need to live and survive. Considering the ever growing problems with our bee populations, I wonder sometimes we we take too much from them. Therefore I am considering these boxes rare and unique and I give thanks with great humility to the bees for this precious substance. Maybe someday when I can be 100% certain that taking honey & wax is not hurting them in any way, I will create with bees wax without worries. I purchased one block of pure bees wax and when I used it all up I will halt using it for a while.

I am going to make a very limited number of these boxes. I plan to make more using soy wax, but I first have to experiment and see how the wax holds up.  Bees wax is so precious and we must not exploit.

Learn more about bees:

How do Bees Make Honey?

(Lansing State Journal, July 30, 1997)

Honeybees use nectar to make honey. Nectar is almost 80% water with some complex sugars. In fact, if you have ever pulled a honeysuckle blossom out of its stem, nectar is the clear liquid that drops from the end of the blossom. In North America, bees get nectar from flowers like clovers, dandelions, berry bushes and fruit tree blossoms. They use their long, tubelike tongues like straws to suck the nectar out of the flowers and they store it in their “honey stomachs”. Bees actually have two stomachs, their honey stomach which they use like a nectar backpack and their regular stomach. The honey stomach holds almost 70 mg of nectar and when full, it weighs almost as much as the bee does. Honeybees must visit between 100 and 1500 flowers in order to fill their honeystomachs.

The honeybees return to the hive and pass the nectar onto other worker bees. These bees suck the nectar from the honeybee’s stomach through their mouths. These “house bees” “chew” the nectar for about half an hour. During this time, enzymes are breaking the complex sugars in the nectar into simple sugars so that it is both more digestible for the bees and less likely to be attacked by bacteria while it is stored within the hive. The bees then spread the nectar throughout the honeycombs where water evaporates from it, making it a thicker syrup. The bees make the nectar dry even faster by fanning it with their wings. Once the honey is gooey enough, the bees seal off the cell of the honeycomb with a plug of wax. The honey is stored until it is eaten. In one year, a colony of bees eats between 120 and 200 pounds of honey

HONEY Bees Are Vanishing

http://pelotes.jea.com/honeybee.htm

What do bees eat? Bees eat nectar (sugary water) and pollen (yellow protein powder) which are made by flowers. Babies are fed lots of pollen, because they need the protein to grow. Since there are lots of flowers in the spring (and lots of pollen), most bee babies are born in the spring. Nectar is what the a worker bee uses to make honey. When she gets to a flower, she drinks as much nectar as she can hold. Then she passes the nectar to another worker bee (who holds the nectar on her tongue) so the water in it can evaporate. When most of the water has evaporated, the sweet nectar becomes honey, which is stored in the hive. During winter, when there aren’t many flowers, bees use this stored honey for food. In the spring and summer, when there are plenty of flowers, bees tell each other where to find nectar and pollen. If a worker finds a grape vine with lots of flowers, she marks it with a pheromone (scent). Then she flies back and dances in the hive. This dance tells other workers what direction to fly in and how far to go. Then they fly off to find her scent, the grape flowers, and the food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajmqUrJtmOg&feature=related