The Fest will open on the 9th of June! Until then, preparations are in full swing! The Hexa-Hive Village with Airstrip for Bees will be installed to Tarja Halosen Puisto, the Other Side audio space will be recorded and the Bruegel-ing starts with a residency at Time’s Up, in Linz (Austria).
You can keep track of the entire program here!
The Kaisaniemi bees were moved to their winter shelter on the 1st of October.
Checking their reserves showed full frames and a healthy colony.
However, Charli could not take a new sample of honey from her square sampling spot, because the bees had not filled it up again. Production of new wax is too expensive so late in the season…..
Hanna, Charli and the Hexa-Hive bees on their short travel through the botanic garden….
Harakka island got its new bee population in early June. The colony is from a beekeeper in Helsinki city. The bees are doing very well. Right now they have lots of food on the blossoming island. Since the beginning of August summer has been chilly and rainy, not so successful for stocking much honey but enough to feed bee babies.
Erkki takes care of the Harakka island’s hive and in the picture he’s preparing a new floor by disinfecting the box with fire.
When putting the new box on top of the hive we also met the beautiful queen.
As a small island, Harakka has a unique climate and flora. The island is a nature reserve and grows great wild flowers. Now for example St John’s worts are blossoming and constantly visited by honey bees and bumble bees.
In Kaisaniemi Botanical garden, there are two new bee colonies in the Hexa-Hives. They have been active builders and quickly filled the second floor in two weeks!
From that hive I took a sample for Charli by cutting a piece of comb in order to explore what plants are visited by the bees in the garden.
Post and pix by Hanna Vainio, Melliferopolis beekeeper
This spring Christina and Ulla made a major physical effort to create an outdoor section for Poikilo Museum Semi-Wild Garden exhibition. In the centre of the city, the park area is hosting a Hexa-Hive Village with new work, Airstrip for Bees. Let´s see how the bees fly with this new construction in their village! More information of the exhibition can be found here.
Videolink of the building process.
The audio of the timelapse video is recorded by Till Bovermann during the summer 2013 in Aalto Otaniemi Campus. A microphone was installed to the hive and what we hear is the bees walking and communicating in the vicinity of the microphone. More experimental sound recordings by Till can be found here.
The colour of the Airstrip will 
change during the summer, the dominating lila will turn to the yellowi and red when the poppies, Isatis Tinctoria, lavanda and many others start blooming.
The exhibition of Hexa-Hive Village and The Airstrip as well as Sundance Palimpsest was on from 7th of May through 6th of September 2015, showing Melliferopolis work, indoors as well as outdoors.
Taidemuseo Kouvola, Finland – puolivilli puutarha.
At the opening of the Semi-Wild Garden Exhibition in Kouvola, the bees were hiding, as it was raining.
An article in the Kouvola Sanomat mentions the work in the park (shortened online version, in Finnish only).
On the 12th of May, the gallery space was opened as well, with the Sundance Palimpsest. The Palimpsest is a collection of beeswax sheets with the recordings of the sun-rays in Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden, in the summer 2014.
The 37 sheets are framed and exhibited in the room, together with Heliocentric, a video work by Semiconductor (UK).
Both the installation and the audiovisual work, reproduce the path of the Sun, once recorded into beeswax and once on digital media. The works are a tribute to our Light Star, an essential factor of all Gardens of the World.
Preparations for the exhibition in Kouvola Puolivilli Puutarha include heavy, but precise construction work. The Airstrip for Bees and a mini version of the Hexa-Hive Village will open on 6th of May 2015 at the Poikilo Museum and are open for visiting over the summer, until the 7th of September, 2015. Construction Day One: 
Construction Day Two (sunny) and Three (rainy): 
To add even more comfort during the cold months, a winter sheet was placed around the Bee Ark.
image by Till Bovermann
