Sunday 22 August 2010

Sound




During the last few months i've been recording the sound of the bees at the hives. The sound of the hive when they are all active is intense - a mass of noise. I've also recorded the bees coming out and taking off to look for food and then coming back into land - whizzing by the microphone. Sometimes one or two land on the mike shield and i can hear them in my headphones nibbling at the sponge.

In 1609 the work of Charles Butler was published: The Feminine Monarchie or A Treatise Concerning Bees, and the Due Ordering of Them: Wherein the Truth, Found Out by Experience and Diligent Observation, in which he attempted to transcribe into musical notation the 'piping' and 'quacking' sounds produced by rival queens within a hive. Check this website out for more information on the books and images of his findings:


http://www.nls.uk/moir/piping.html

I've been translating my recordings into a visual form too - shown above.

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