I used to feel overwhelmed with anxiety about environmental issues, until I began beekeeping.
When you consider that a single honeybee only produces a thirteenth of a teaspoon of honey, and yet collaboratively they create gallons of this liquid-gold pickled nectar, each pollinating around 300 flowers during her three days of flight and contributing to 1-in-3 mouthfuls of the food we eat; they remind me that long journeys are made of little steps.
I’m sure the greatest lesson of the gardening and beekeeping is that the tiniest creatures can be the hero of the story. I’ve been nursing a children’s picture book idea where this is represented by a honeycomb made of thousands of flowers.
Feeling slightly overwhelmed by the task of putting the entire dummy and two double-page-spreads together so that I can pitch my idea, I’m practicing what I preach by capturing one flower at a time…
I’ve been volunteering at primary schools and various community gardens where I used to work, armed with colour-sorted collage materials. After explaining what life is like inside the hive and having a go at the waggle dance, these Key Stage 2 poppets helped to make some of my collages. My dream is for the picture book to be a big collaborative achievement, like the honeybee hive.
Comments