Stories from The Coalescence of Creation: Save The Bees!!

The Coalescence of Creation is an Award Winning Body Art Yarn Bomb Installation Art Piece featured at the World Bodypainting Festival in Austria by Artist Emma Cammack. With Artists, Bodypainters and Models also featured in the presentation there were over 100 Artisans involved with making this extraordinary piece of team work happen, of that 100 over 85 were Fibre Artists creating beautiful handcrafted pieces to be a part of a crochet and knitted fantasy woodland on the banks of Worthersee. Each and every piece and every person that is part of the installation has a tale to tell of how they came to be there...

I am a passionate gardener and lover of nature. Part of wanting to create the crochet woodland wonderland that forms the backdrop to the Installation was my love of nature. I wanted to celebrate natures heroes, one of the biggest of which for me is the humble Bee! Bees are essential to keep food on our plates and for the circle of life to keep spinning. Too many bees have been dying, poisoned by our need to farm "more efficiently". Bees are vital and we work hard at home to provide an environment for them to thrive. I researched lots of images of wild bee hives and inspired by many images I saw decided to free style my own versions to hang in the woodland.

The Honeycomb hive was inspired by the crochet honeycomb image I found on Pinterest, and which I roughly approximated my own version of with double thread yarn and a huge crochet hook. 

 The Hanging wild bee hive was up cycled from a brown scarf found in a charity shop that was coiled and sewn into the hanging hive shape, with crochet bees sewn on. I am very happy with the results.

A wonderful surprise while we were building the installation was to find a nest of Mason Bees happily living underground within out installation. The entrance to their hive was just here on the ground next to the knitted bollard. If you look carefully in the picture you can see their hole at the right bottom of the bollard.

Save the bees poster resource.

There are many simple ways you can help bees in your own garden. Plant some of the plants on the poster, and avoid using chemicals which will harm them on your garden. We need the bees more than they need us.

Click here for more info from Friends of the Earth on helping Bees in your region.