I began working with bees in 2010, when I went to The Ohio State University for graduate school. My ideas very often come from research, and I had been concerned about Colony Collapse Disorder in bees, which was not well understood at the time. I was fortunate to meet a master beekeeper from the Ohio State Bee Extension, Dan Jarvis, and I asked him to teach me how to work with bees. Thus began two years of experiments, and trial and error, and of course, failure. This work is predicated on failure - it is a kind of forced collaboration, and in it, the bees have as much agency as I do. I make a sculpture from wax and offer it to them as a sort of proposition, and while I can attempt to control various aspects, the results are always surprising. If they choose to work on the sculpture, a back and forth begins, where I will make alterations and return it to the hive until I’m satisfied with the results or run out of time.
Timing is a big part of this work - there are only 2 months in the summer when they are making wax, and I can extend that time slightly by feeding them sugar water, which helps their bodies keep producing it. If I leave a work in for too long, however, it will become filled with honey and unusable, at which point it belongs to the bees.
Interestingly, every hive of bees works very differently, and some won’t play along at all. In this work I am always careful to do no harm, and to follow the best beekeeping practices I can that won’t disrupt their more essential activities. Ironically, through doing this work I discovered that I was allergic to their stings, so I’m thankful to have the help of my friend and ex-husband, Rick Benjamin-Tebelau, and a good bee suit.