Author Archives: admin

wax lateral

COMB BUILDING

A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal wax cells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen.
The axes of honeycomb cells are always quasi-horizontal, and the nonangled rows of honeycomb cells are always horizontally (not vertically) aligned. Thus, each cell has two vertical walls, with “floors” and “ceilings” composed of two angled walls. The cells slope slightly upwards, between 9 and 14 degrees, towards the open ends. The hexagon tiles the plane with minimal surface area. Thus, a hexagonal structure uses the least material to create a lattice of cells within a given volume.
Another explanation is that the shape simply results from the process of individual bees putting cells together: somewhat analogous to the boundary shapes created in a field of soap bubbles. In support of this, he notes that queen cells, which are constructed singly, are irregular and lumpy with no apparent attempt at efficiency.
The closed ends of the honeycomb cells are also an example of geometric efficiency, albeit three-dimensional and little-noticed. The ends are trihedral (i.e., composed of three planes) sections of rhombic dodecahedra, with the dihedral angles of all adjacent surfaces measuring 120°, the angle that minimizes surface area for a given volume. The shape of the cells is such that two opposing honeycomb layers nest into each other, with each facet of the closed ends being shared by opposing cells.

bee-architects01wax lateral
voronoi diagram

The hive is a system of homeostasis. Homeostasis is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition of properties like temperature or pH. It can be either an open or closed system.
A medium sized nest needs 1200gr wax to be build, and 7,5 kg honey for the energy. Beeswax is composed of more than 300 different chemical components.
The vertical comb construction is parallel to the earth magnetic field, the bees can construct this way thanks to the gravity receptors (organs) that are situated in all their legs and body joints.

The bees’ body is the basic template for the construction of a wax cell. From a cylindrical form the cells become hexagonal under the tension of the regurlarly constructed comb and heated by the bees’ bodyheath (cfr. soap bubbles joining together). The wax wall of a cell is 0,07mm. The antennae of the bees measure the cells’ thickness.

The comb + wax is an integral and inseparable part of the colony as superorganism.
The comb is =>
Living space
Food storage
Nursery
A skeleton
A sensory organ
A nervous system
A memory stare
An immune system

Functions of the comb =>
Telephone system
Information storage
Colony specific identity
Defense against pathogens
Shelter
Nursery (center)
Storage & production ⇒ periphery
The nectar/honey is mixed with antibacterial and antifungal peptides and enzymes, before storage in the cells

beekeeper

Bees were very important in the daily life of ancient Egypt. The bee was an insignia of kingship associated particularly with Lower Egypt, where there may even have been a Bee King in pre-dynastic times. The bee was considered sacred by early Egyptians and often regarded as a symbol of resurrection. In Egyptian mythology the Sun God Ra created the honey bee from his tears. The bee, representing the word bit – meaning bee or honey in hieroglyphics, was used as a prefix to the throne name of Egyptian rulers. Bee stood for He of the Bee or King of Lower Egypt.

diaper

Diaper is the name given to a textile fabric, formerly of a rich and costly nature with embroidered ornament, but now of linen or cotton, with a simple woven pattern; and particularly restricted to small napkins. In architecture, the term “diaper” is given to any small pattern of a conventional nature repeated continuously and uniformly over a surface; the designs may be purely geometrical, or based on floral forms, and in early examples were regulated by the process of their textile origin. Subsequently, similar patterns were employed in the middle ages for the surface decoration of stone, as in Westminster Abbey and Bayeux cathedral in the spandrils of the arcades of the choir and nave; also in mural painting, stained glass, incised brasses, encaustic tiles, &c. Probably in most cases the pattern was copied, so far as the general design is concerned, from the tissues and stuffs of Byzantine manufacture, which came over to Europe and were highly prized as ecclesiastical vestments.

ABOUT MUSHROOMS

Today’s professional mushroom growing is an energy-consuming process. But it is perfectly possible to grow your Oyster mushrooms, your Shiitake’s or lesser known edible mushrooms in an energy-friendly and ecological environment. This can be done with a minimum of work, time and space. Okno is inviting mycologist Ann Van Belle to introduce you into the world of mushrooms with a practical demonstration followed by a lecture and Q&T-moment. Continue reading

BEE MONITORING

After a few workshops at Okno to develop the observation system, I start to monitor the development of a colony from its swarming dd. april 26 2011. The bees start building a new nest in the green beehive that is set up for the monitoring. The hive is located in the okno garden, about 3 metres from the window of the studio. Two webcams are installed in the middle frame of the brood box , in a small plexi box. If the web cams would not be protected, the bees would cover them with propolis. The camera’s send a steady stream of images, 1 per minute, via a PC board installed in one of the honey supers of the hive. The PC is connected to the internet via an ethernet cable. The purpose is to follow at any time the comb building and the growth of the colony. The images are continuously displayed on a large flat screen and can as well be consulted in real time via the internet.

camera1
camera2

The inside of the beehive is lit with an infrared led lamp for filming.
The bees are not disturbed by this red light. Their vision spectrum ranges from ultra violet (what a human eye cannot perceive) and it stops before red range – bees cannot see red.
We see the beginning of comb building after swarming. The bees start building from the left corner of the first frame. They construct several parallel layers of honeycomb. Over time they will expand the comb so that it covers the complete inside width of the hive.


The swarm organises itself to build a new home for the colony.

VIRTUES OF A FOREST GARDEN

A forest garden is a garden modelled on a natural woodland. It has 3 layers of vegetation: trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants. In an edible forest garden the tree layer contains fruit and nut trees, the shrub layer soft fruit and nut bushes, and the ground layer perennial vegetables and herbs. The soil is not dug and annual vegetables are not normally included unless they can reproduce by self-seeding. It is usually a very diverse garden, containing a wide variety of edible plants. Continue reading

SELF-SUFFICIENT GARDENS

The Open Green project blends organic and technological matter into one and the same nature. Through analogue and digital means we do long term observations on the growth, blossoming and decay of plants and insects submitted to natural elements such as wind, sun, rain and pollution in an urban context.
We monitor and extract data from natural processes both on a micro garden level as on a macro city level and make the data available online in realtime with open wireless citynetworks. Continue reading

ENHANCED BEEHIVE

The enhanced beehive is a gateway to monitor a honeybee colony and its environment. Numerous possibilities for observing the bees’ behavior and important measured values from within the hive are provided as well as measuring data for the climate, soil, and vegetation in the honeybee colony’s direct environment. Storing all of the data over a period of several months allows not alone a very well detailed observation but also the ability to discover and follow long-term trends of complex relations between the superorganism and its environment.
The life in and around the hive is monitored by many measurement systems. Two webcams , equipped with infrared leds, make it possible to see in the dark. The monitor the movement of bees over the frames in the hive.
Since the hive was populated with a swarm (may 4th 2011), the 2 webcams record at 15 fps the life in the hive. Comb building, movements and action. In the top of the frames (in the hive body) there are 2 temperature sensors capturing the temperature in the beehive, as well as a CO2 sensor and a sensor recording the humidity in the hive.
Outside of the hive, the temperature and the humidity of the direct environment are also measured.
The webcams are connected to a PC board that is configured as a streaming server. It makes the images of the hive in real time available on the internet. The data from the different sensors are also logged and available in realtime.

sensorframe
enhanced-beehive

Bee Monitoring Research in the OpenGreens. We organise a series of workshops to develop non-intrusive bee monitoring systems.
Bee Monitoring Workshops is a series of workshops in which we try to understand the distributed intelligence of honey bee colonies : their behaviour, ecology and sociobiology. By monitoring the bees and beehives with all kinds of sensors, we study the colony (as a community) and its relation to the urban environment. We will document this research with all kind of media (photo, film, audio, text, code) and we will use the extracted data to make artworks based upon the bees behaviour over time. We try to connect nature and technology in a new relationship of interconnections.
During 2 workshops in february and march 2011, we discussed a digital survey of the honeybees.
Beekeepers, artists and engineers joined their knowledge to come up with a design that offers a realtime, online monitoring of the beehive.
A swarm was put into the hive on may 4th 2011. Since than 2 webcams record the colonies’ behaviour. Simultaneously the data of inside and outside temperature, humidity and Co2 level are logged.

NEW NARRATIVES ON URBAN ARCHITECTURE

Wired cities is a project on non-linear storytelling, exploring the city as a balanced and tactile ecological system.
The map of the city is erased and reconstructed from scratch.
How do artists experience a specific city? Edifices, old and new, that are considered landmarks can be reconstructed and arranged along one’s architectural fantasies. Old and new stories weave maps of collective memories. Analog and digital input are mixed. New skylines emerge out of folding architecture. Photographs and movies become new textures. Continue reading

10 DAYS TO SAVE …. REPORT BY R.DEBATTY

Setting up an exhibition about today’s ecological and economical crisis is a delicate exercise: it seems that everybody has done one such exhibition before you and invited the same artists as you. This year’s edition of The Game Is Up! , a festival organized by one of my favourite art centers, the Vooruit in Ghent, Belgium, was brazenly titled How To Save the World in 10 Days. Continue reading

POC WORKSHOP REPORT

Politics of Change was a gathering in Brussels during a 3-day workshop arranged by so-on and hosted by okno, both cultural organizations composed of several members engaged in different aspects of the artistic creation.
The call, made by the filmmaker and activist Annemie Maes, had different goals. One of them was to reflect on topics as gender and activism in the cultural field, another was the sharing of common technical tools to be used for sharing and spreading the word. Continue reading

POLITICS OF CHANGE – WORKSHOP

Politics of Change is a research project in which artists, theorists and activists reflect on innovative ideas, contributions and solutions which support distributed and grassroot structures. This reflection takes place through a program of free discussion and dialogue and is documented in a multimedia archive-installation.
The focus is on the role of women at the core of these communities.
Drawing on a wide range of artistic and theoretical approaches, Continue reading