Anthony Stallsworth
Sarah Williams and Arlen Speights
Making Meaning Matter
3 November 2014
Blue Rabbit Iteration #2
As all great or amazing things invented in this world, they all start off with just an idea. Whether this is a good idea or not, we do not always know. I question what creates a good idea, is it the complexity of deep thought that was put into an idea, the intentional motivations behind it, or is it simply how great the use of the idea plays a role in people’s lives? I believe that these roles play a key part in the machine that is “idea-making.” Sometimes the idea we come up with are already invented. As for my idea, I am copying something that nature has created many times over and over again: The beehive. My intentions are not to innovate the beehive, or make it better by any means, but only to recreate the beehive to help people think about the environment they live in, in a new way. This is the intentional motivation behind my idea.
I would only like to create this beehive in a way that it may be able to possibly sustain a hive of inhabitants that may so choose to move into it, but also resemble the shape of something meaningful so that I can innovate the way people think. As of now, I am not sure entirely what that shape will be, because there are many different meaningful shapes I could choose. Shape ideas could range from the shape of the world with all of its continents plateau’d into it, to the less complex shape of just a heart. Even though both of these shapes symbolize the relationship between honeybees and their care for the world and the nature in it, there are still many options to choose from. Another idea to consider in the creation of my project is the filament that I choose to print it out with. PLA is your standard, biodegrade-able filament that you can use if you want the Earth to inherit more plastic. I do not wish to do this, so I want to use a more natural filament to create my beehive, one that is created from recycled wood. This filament is called “Laywoo-D3.” Although this filament is not as good as the beeswax filament, we do not have the extruder needed in order to print beeswax.
Although parasites and harsh weather environments are not the only enemies of the life pertaining to a bee, they are still part of the number of the natural elements that can kill them. By natural elements, I mean ways humans have not destructed their lives by force of the honey production businesses in today’s modern era. “Honey-bees inadvertently come into contact with a wide array of inorganic and organic pollutants, and these are often taken back to the colony.” (Devillers, Preface) As seen in texts written by those who study bees because of their role in the agricultural aspect of the world, they are affected by the way us humans are affecting the environment that they are living in. To show the importance that Genus Apis (honey bees) play in our agriculture, there have been many studies done, and I would like to portray them to you. The U.S Department of Agriculture wrote an article stating that “the bumblebee is regarded as one of the most efficient pollinators of many crops.” They wrote this article in response to the decline in population of honeybees in 1976, and since then, the bee population in the United States has only gone downhill.
“The first human-constructed hives were variations on the theme of the hollow tree.” (Jacobson 25-26) The earliest known man-made beehives were found in Israel, which dates back to around the year of 900 B.C. This is a very early time in human history that honeybees even became important. In the tombs of Egypt, archaeologists discovered honey buried with the important figures of that time, which means it held either a medicinal value, a spiritual value, or high standard-value to their culture (That is to say it was worth a couple dollars). May I also add the fun fact that when they found this honey, even after thousands of years, it was still edible because honey never goes bad. Honey is also a form of antiseptic. One that is considered a “slow-release antiseptic, one that does not damage tissue as other antiseptics sometimes can.” (Buchmann 120)
There has been many ways that honey is used throughout the world. The most important part of this use is the creation of it. To create it, bees must first find the pollen from flowers to create it. During this time is when they pollinate flowers and keep the flowers alive, because most flowers would not survive without the bees there to pollinate them. “Without honeybees, you would be limited to eating oats, rice, and corn.” (Markle 6) Although some of us would live happy eating just oats, rice, and corn, many people would probably not be so happy doing that. We have many vegetables and fruits that we need to eat to have our daily intake of nutrients in order for us to stay healthy. Without this, the world and the people in it would look much different, and we would have to change the technologies we use just to be able to survive.
Although all of these facts and textual support relate to my project, my project is not made with the intention to save the bees. Again, my project has only one soul purpose of just helping innovate the way people think about honeybees. My goal is to change people’s minds next time they decide to step on one when they see it collection pollen from a flower, because even one honeybee lost can create a big difference to its hive. I think think that the goal of everyone’s projects is to make people think in a different way, or to gain some knowledge behind the meaning of our project. Although we may not be able to change the world, we may be able to change the way people look at certain aspects of it, if not a certain aspect of the world entirely. And who knows, maybe we can even change the way people live on the world as well.
Works Cited
Buchmann, Stephen L. Honey Bees: Letters from the Hive. New York:
Delacorte, 2010. Print.
Devillers, James, and Minh-Hà Pham-Delègue. Honey Bees: Estimating the
Environmental Impact of Chemicals. London: Taylor & Francis, 2002.
Jacobsen, Rowan. Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the
Coming Agricultural Crisis. New York: Bloomsbury, 2008. Print.
Markle, Sandra. The Case of the Vanishing Honey Bees: A Scientific
Mystery. Minneapolis: Millbook, 2014. Print.
“Pollination and the Honey Bee.” (1976): 1-20. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.
<http://books.google.com/books?
id=gWwvAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA17&dq=honeybees+agriculture&hl=en&sa=
X&ei=eiZYVMv7KYLtoASUpYGQAQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&
q=honeybees%20agriculture&f=false>.