New bees on the block

A new queen and were installed our hive at Hazel Heights on April 15... here's a peek at the process! The lovely pictures were taken by Mileaux Welty.

Our volunteer Beekeeper, Paul Bryant, is all suited up! He's taken the top cover off of our bee hive. He shared a lot of information on bee culture during the installation. We're getting Italian bees and a new queen. The majority of the hive has travels coach, but the queen gets special treatment in a private box of her own. The white plug is a marshmallow that her workers will eat to let her out. In the few days it takes to work through the plug, the queen will acclimate to her new home and be likely to stay.

New Italian worker bees

Our new queen bee

Paul takes a frame out of the hive (with some work-in-progress from the previous tenants)

And then transfers the bees to their new home. He does this by simply shaking the box, and the bees fall out like cereal! (Not quite the honey-crunch I want to eat, however.)

Ready...here we go!

Gentle shakes get the bees out of their box.

When all the bees are out, Paul places the queen in the hive, still in her travelling box.

Finally, the frame is carefully replaced... and the hive closed back up.

 We hope these bees will find our garden a sweet new home!

Mosaic update!

The mosaic work for our P-Patch sign is coming along beautifully, thanks to Vicki and Cheryl! Vicki sends us these pictures from the work parties held on Nov 26 and Dec 7.

Here is the progress of the mosaic to date! Beautiful, isn't it? I've tried to get the colors to match from picture to picture, but they might be different in reality.



The volunteer group (Cheryl, Vicki, Paula, Jack) at work!

Beckey and Toby working away on the work party on December 7:

Hazel Heights gardeners Judy & Sara busily working away!

Mosaic in progress

After over two years gathering great ideas from our gardeners, neighbors and other community members, the design work for our mosaic is almost complete! Artists Vicki Robinson and Cheryl Knox have a template for the final artwork. There will also be more opportunities to participate during our mosaic production and installation process, so make sure to keep an eye out for those announcements if you'd like to help out.

Mosaic design taped to front wall

The materials will be very durable (grouted glass). Seattle Mosaic Arts in Wallingford has volunteered their time to tutor the two artists though the process, as the 4x 7' mosaic involves a good deal of steps. Claire and her assists have provided ongoing support to the process.

The glass pieces are put on a semi-adhesive surface (contact paper) underneath is the original drawing.  

Vicki and Cheryl try out iridescent glass on the honeybee's wings.

When the image is ready to be put in place, a much more adhesive film of plastic is put on top, and then it's pulled away from the contact paper. The piece is then ready to be set into the permanent surface with thinslip.

Here's Claire Barnett at Seattle Mosaic Arts tutoring us in the process.

Claire Barnett at Seattle Mosaic Arts

Vicki and Cheryl created sample mosaics to learn more about the indirect process of making mosaics.

Sample "test" leaf made by Vicki and Cheryl

It's going to bee beautiful!