Honeycomb is made up of a tessellation of hexagons formed by beeswax. It is not only mathematically elegant and efficient, but representative of the interconnectedness of all life. Honeybees are a super organism and one bee cannot survive on its own without the rest of the colony.
Hexagons for Healing and Hope is my effort to try and repair, restore, and provide a way for people to help the bees. There is a honeybee crisis world-wide, and we are farmers felt it very personally this season. The simple, repeated form of the hexagon is my meditation and prayer for the bees.
I have created a series of encaustic artworks and acrylic paintings called "hexagons for healing and hope". We have had several rough years in our bee yard, and this year we will not be taking honey off of our few living colonies. This also means we will not be offering honey at our holiday sales. This is a sad conversation we have had with our returning customers. We usually use revenue from honey sales to purchase more bees in the Spring. How can we re-populate our bee yard if we have no honey to sell?
Your purchase of a hexagon painting (or other artwork/products) will help the bees directly and hopefully we can re-establish our apiary for next year. We continue to try and educate ourselves to become smarter, more sustainable beekeepers, and diversify our honeybee inspired products such as encaustics and mead.
The honeybees are at the heart of our business and all of our creative projects at Algomah Acres and Meadery originate from the beehive. We realize that we need to heal slowly and at the source along with expanding and diversifying our products. It is, however, a precarious dance with nature, and we are not always aware of the choreography in this partnership--it reveals itself as we go.
A collaborative community project with hexagons is in our future....and we will keep you posted. Thank you again for caring for the bees and all of your creative and supportive efforts.
