Hot for Bees on the Eleonore

(Credits in German) Eleonore TV, die Sendung der Stadtwerkstatt
vom Messschiff Eleonore aus dem Linzer Hafen.

Maruska Polakova spricht mit Bioni Samp
Live gesendet am 9. Juni 2015

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Bioni Samp – Bee Frequency Farming – Artist Residency Diary 2015

As the temperature climbed to 30 degrees plus on the Eleonore in Linz harbour, the electronic bee apiary start to take shape. At last a chance to work fully for a while on my synths and also to record some local sounds around the harbour and Danube. The gentle sway of the Eleonore at night was relaxing and London traffic noises seemed far away.

The river Danube in sight from within the harbour and discovering it’s own traffic, of 80 ‘hotel boats’ and many cargo ships of all sizes and shapes. Linz the last working shipyard in Austria, next to the interconnecting steelworks, which made me feel at home, like visiting an older time in Sheffield. Nightly the steel works forges hot glowing steel, warming the horizon clouds, directly above the huge industrial complex of steel works and four working harbours.

Bees on boats were a recent theme I had been researching. Lots of questions. Getting bees to islands of fresh nectar on the other-side of Danube or following the nectar flow week by week, as still is today on the river Nile. Starting in spring head north, east or west on the ancient nectar trail. All originally done by boats. Have boats lost their connection with bees in Europe? It’s more likely now that trucks takes the bees to pollinate and gather fresh nectar, like the summer relocation to summer heather crops. Can bees come back to boats on the Danube? What about a bee-boat-house?

Boats, huge boats arrive in the harbour every few days, to be repaired. One big cargo boat does not have a working engine or propeller and is pushed into place at the dry dock edge, by a powerful tug. I record it’s noises underwater, via a borrowed hydrophone.

There are about four boats here. The main one being the Eleonore, a 80yo workers boat once used on remote parts of the Danube. Most days we, the captain and his mate plus other boating types canoe over the harbour for lunch at the steelworks municipal canteen. Where a very hearty meal is cheap but very heavy. Siesta Needed after.

The temperature has been very hot hitting 31 deg one day. Mostly a nice breeze though and easy to dip feet in cool water. Water quite clean with lots of fish. Looking out from the stern I can see the fast flowing Danube in the distance where a powerful boat is needed. Been out a few times in one of the motor boats along a few miles to where another river joins the Danube. Great fresh air and all the hills round about Linz are totally covered in trees. I am writing this on my mobile in the evening because the solar power just went off too much stuff plugged in and not enough storage. Tonight I am staying on one of the smaller boats, about 10m, for a change. It has a engine unlike the main

boat which was just towed to position.

During Occupy NYC 2012, a military ‘sound cannon’ was used against activists. So loud, the weapons signal was painful to hear in the street a long way away. Bees need their own sound cannons or ‘Bee Cannon’s. Their contemporary message is painful to hear. They face extinction in a world that now has less than 5 percent wild animals, compared to domesticated animals. Unfortunately pesticide sprayed animal food and GM crops feed these (mainly now clones).

Painting tubes, waiting to dry, florescent yellow paint, glows in the bright daylight. Log hives, ceramic ancient hives. Comfortable homes for honeybees.

Their sounds played inside these tubes focus’s them to become ‘Bee Cannons’, sounding out their recorded sounds from field recordings, inside housing speakers and oscillators tuned to the natural ranges of, the Queen, Worker and Drone honeybees. Bee frequency emulation synthesisers. An electronic apiary starts to take place. My Binaural Beeframe EMF Detector picks up harbour crackle and steelworks heavy electrical machinery. A few mobile phones nearby. Mostly quiet at night.

Bioni Samp (c) 2015