Audrey Nicoll

Requiem: Apiary is part of a larger ongoing body of work that looks at current food production practices and the impact upon our environment and global community. The honeybee and other pollinators contribute considerably to overall global food production, and their departure from our eco-system demands attention. This small series of drawings commemorates their contribution and some of their extraordinary characteristics. Each drawing pulls from a long history of symbolic and scientific notations associated with the honeybee starting with the structural underlay of the honeycomb as a unifying device for this series. It is the honeybee’s production of honey that instigated our interest and prompted associations with the gods. Ancient Egyptians made honey cakes by the thousands as offerings to their dead, which then required an extensive honey production industry. Itinerant beekeepers sailed barges down the Nile following the growing seasons. Filled with apiaries, the bees did double duty pollinating crops and producing honey for ritual offerings. A similar practice continues today when millions of bees are transported across North America in semi transport trucks to pollinate crops from California to Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, this practice has a 30% bee mortality rate due to stress and what appears to be malnutrition. It is also a contributing factor to the spread of parasitic infections and disease amongst the continent’s bee population. Yet it is a necessary component of food production. 

Apiaries have been a consistent component of food production since we figured out how to contain them within a domestic environment. A vital component to historical gardens, particularly monastic gardens, apiaries provided honey and more importantly beeswax. Beeswax tapers provided both literal and metaphorical light and thus maintained honeybees’ association with the sun, the gods, and enlightenment. The church provided sustenance for both body and soul with the honeybee inextricably entwined. It wasn’t until the 18th century, during the Industrial Revolution in Britain, that the church’s duty to feed its flock came to full prominence. A system of parish allotments was created out of a dire necessity to feed the rural poor. Over time, this system waxed and waned as necessary returning to Britain during the World Wars to supplement food rations and continuing today in the form of urban community gardens throughout the world. It’s success as a means to feed and potentially provide a source of income for the disadvantaged has inspired Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to recommend and support the implementation of community gardens (allotments) in areas of food insecurity.  

Elements of the garden, pollination, and transience are woven throughout these drawings. They are but a small part of my fascination with the honeybee and its struggle to survive. Einstein once said that if we loose our bees, we have five years to survive as a species. Perhaps then it is also a fascination with our own ability to survive.