They are the They will not smell my fear, my fear, my fear.

1. TIK IDEAS
1.2. ABOUT ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT
1.2.1. culture
1.2.1.1. literature
1.2.1.1.a. bees and literature
1.2.1.1.a BEE AND LITERATURE 2
And when he acquires a property (called “harmas”) in the remote Provence
region where he will retire and continue his research undisturbed, he describes
it as follows:
Do we see here something like a new paradigm? Something aesthetic,
emerging in between the literary, the arts, and the exact/natural sciences.
Maybe due to the growing disciplinarity of each, the specializations, and the
birth of new (sub)sciences like psychology, anthropology, cybernetics, computer
science, and others in the long 20th century. Maybe the birth of hybrid
expressive forms, with their own stylistic features, joining closer the poetical
and philosophical traditions with a more exact and realistic language
potential.
Suddenly it is raining even harder now. So we cannot turn to the garden and
the bees themselves. Let’s continue to write.
Here comes a hypothesis.
Reading through the reports, we find a conventional ‘scientific’ style: dry
language, unimaginative accurateness, statistical graphs as illustrations.
The zealous taxonomist seemed to be just continuing his work like he had
done with the gall wasps. For instance, for the second book he would personally
interview almost 6000 women about their sexual behaviour. And
just like he analyzed each insect by 26 parameters, he had an extensive list
of different parameters for each interviewee. It is strange that these works
could ever become popular bestsellers. Still we believe there is more to it
than just the astonishing news about sexual orientation, pre- and extramarital
sex, promiscuity, etc... But maybe, is there a scientific style and a popular
one? Do they really exist?
It seems that his work as a taxonomist, specifically investigating the ecological
relations of organisms rather than adaptation and domestication issues,
had not only triggered the interest in the diversity of one species, the gall
wasp, and their diversified sexual behaviour. It would also lead to quite an
innovating approach when researching and observing the similar behaviour
of the human species. The reports showed that men and women in their
sexuality were more equal than generally thought, and moreover that the
social and cultural environments were shaping rather than repressing sexuality
for both. Definitely this was breaking many taboos and prejudices at the
end of the 1940s, and probably for the next 20 years to follow. Kinsey would
be associated forever with his notorious popular reputation, a strange mix
of scientific rigour, popularity, suspicion and scandal.
[footnote 1]
40 years more than 300 insects a day. Interestingly the man became famous
with another part of his career and not as an entomologist. In 1948 he published
the first of the so-called Kinsey reports Sexual Behavior in the Human
Male, followed by Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953. These
were rigorous scientific works, with field interviews and statistics, for sure
foundational to the modern field of sexology. In fundamentalist religious
and cold-war USA they provoked a storm of controversies which certainly
had their influence on the so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s.
York has a collection of 5 million gall wasps, donated by the late Alfred Kinsey.
Other sources mention an extravagant 7.5 million. Someone immediately
started to calculate that in the former case he must have sampled over
See here is a Tailor-bee. She scrapes the cobwebby stalk of the yellow-flowered centaury,
and gathers a ball of wadding which she carries off proudly with her mandibles or jaws.
She will turn it, underground, into cotton satchels to hold the store of honey and the eggs.
And here are the Leaf-cutting Bees, carrying their black, white, or blood-red reaping brushes
under their bodies. They will visit the neighbouring shrubs, and there cut from the leaves
oval pieces in which to wrap their harvest. Here too are the black, velvet-clad Mason-bees,
who work with cement and gravel. We could easily find specimens of their masonry on the stones
in the harmas. Next comes a kind of Wild Bee who stacks her cells in the winding staircase
of an empty snail-shell; and another who lodges her grubs in the pith of a dry bramble-stalk;
and a third who uses the channel of a cut reed; and a fourth who lives rent-free in the vacant
galleries of some Mason-bee. There are also Bees with horns, and Bees with brushes on their hind-legs,
to be used for reaping.
(Book of Insects p. 8)
The Hero is a Bee.
The Belgian (but most of his life he was living in France) Nobel Prize winner
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949), had a successful career as a symbolist
writer. He is mostly remembered for the fairy-like L’oiseau bleu. All his life
he had a controversial personal record - he was politically active by supporting
the early socialist trade unions and publicly opposing both world wars.
Interested in nature, by the 1920s he turned to writing several books about
insects. Already in 1902 he had published La Vie des Abeilles (The Life of the
Bee). In 1926 he was accused of academic plagiarism for his La Vie des Termites
(The Life of the White Ant). It became a political issue which would not
prevent him from writing other books about ants and spiders afterwards. In
his Life of the Bees, he would summarize the until then existing research in
the field, done by Reaumur, Huber, and others. Maeterlinck formulated this
in clear language without much scientific or personal excursions. Here and
there we find a more philosophical reflection, pointing out how different
bees are from humans. In the introduction, called ‘On the Threshold of the
Hive’, he explains his style:
My facts shall be as accurate as though they appeared in a practical manual or scientific monograph,
but I shall relate them in a somewhat livelier fashion than such works would allow, shall group them
more harmoniously together, and blend them with freer and more mature reflections. The reader of this
book will not learn there-from how to manage a hive ; but he will know more or less all that can with
any certainty be known of the curious, pro-found, and intimate side of its inhabitants. Nor will this
be at the cost of what still remains to be learned. I shall pass over in silence the hoary traditions
that, in the country and many a book, still constitute the legend of the hive.
(The Life of the Bee, p. 5)
Definitely a new way of writing about science, from science, within literary
forms is being revealed. It shows clearly the writers’ interests in the scientific
paradigms, assigning to themselves a role to enlighten, explain and
aestheticize the information. An anecdote: when Maeterlinck was invited
by Goldwyn to Hollywood, he seemed to have written two scenarios. It is
reported Goldwyn rushed out of his office, screaming. “My God, the hero is
a bee!”.
1.2.1.1.a BEE AND LITERATURE 4
Outside the rain is drizzling. Looking out of the window, the beehives show
almost no activity. Should we take a look?
The Ultimate Bee Scientist.
One of the most sensitive accounts perhaps ever written about research on
bees, is the mesmerizing The Dancing Bees (1953) by Karl von Frisch (1886-
1962). While he was suffering from the Nazi takeover of the academic agenda,
he continued his research about the perception and behaviour of bees
in his parents’ remote cottage on the border between Austria and Germany.
The book is an enchanting account of almost DIY-style research into the
senses (smell, sight, colour, light, touch, taste, ...), orientation, time awareness,
emotions and consciousness, etc.. of bees. One of the most fascinating
pages was written about the discovery of the language of the bees. Accurately
but tenderly he describes how he set up the initial test sites, how
wrong and right hypotheses were made, and how finally the language of
the bees was discovered by deciphering their movements and ‘dances’.
Interestingly, von Frisch’s writings combine many stylistic features of the
authors mentioned before. Through his writings and further research, he
received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, together with
Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz. It was remarkable that they all three
got this prize at the same time. Von Frisch had been a victim of Nazi policies
(he was also 1/4 Jewish), while Konrad Lorenz had been a contributor to the
attempt to create a racial and eugenic science. Tinbergen had been a member
of the Dutch resistance at the end of WW2.
An account of this controversial assignment and the quite different background
of each of the three winners can be read in the recent publication
Insectopedia, by the anthropologist Hugh Raffles (2010), under the section
‘Language’. Raffles is interested in our relationship to insects and provides us
an intriguing account of the dedicated work of many artists and researchers,
and some of the writers mentioned above. Actually, the work by Raffles, the
style and treatment of the content could fit into our hypothesis because the
work is not only about creativity between the arts and sciences, it also is an
attempt in itself to match original approaches to a research question with
an original and fitting style of writing. It is a perfect introduction into a new
kind of art forms that attempt to fuse the natural and nurtured within the
creative; creativity that provokes a change of paradigm.
Lured in by the title, a publication of the same year, Insect Media: an Archaeology
of Animals and Technology by Jussi Parikka, landed on our desk. In this
collection Parikka tries to discuss ethology as well, basically starting with
Jakob von Uexküll (1864-1944) and his concepts of Merkwelt and Umwelt,
later used by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus.
Though he tries to bring in most of the media philosophy heroes of the last
decades, he sort of loses himself in a post-postmodernist account and is
getting stuck in references and brilliant ideas but with a rather superficial
impact. It is a pity, because we were looking forward to new relationships
that still seem to be unexplored today between the issues mentioned above
and, for instance, current media technology, biorobotics, complexity, ecology,
etc...
1.2.1.1.a BEE AND LITERATURE 6
They will not smell my fear, my fear, my fear.
I am nude as a chicken neck, does nobody love me?
Yes, here is the secretary of bees with her white shop smock,
Buttoning the cuffs at my wrists and the slit from my neck to my
knees.
Now I am milkweed silk, the bees will not notice.
Who are these people at the bridge to meet
me? They are the
villagers----
The rector, the midwife, the sexton, the agent for bees.
In my sleeveless summery dress I have no protection,
And they are all gloved and covered, why did nobody tell me?
They are smiling and taking out veils tacked to ancient hats.

My God,
the hero is
a
bee!
Hidden lives and other professions by sex workers, anthropologists,
historians, journalists and writers. About new artistic paradigms, or
(not) just about bees and literature.
WRITING AT THE THRESHOLD OF THE HIVE
Writing Observations.
Browsing through history and writing seems to support the wild hypothesis.
From recent history, the best known writer - increasingly popular in current
new New Age times - is definitely Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915).
Today we planned to extract honey, but after a couple of days with moderate
summer weather, it is suddenly raining continuously with heavy wind
blasts now and then.
When relying on natural events and phenomena, one can never predict
how and when things will happen. So far nothing new, since Henri Bergson
already dedicated almost his whole philosophy to that, and even the most
popular book on new science, chaos and complexity will tell you the same.
But still we were counting on working with the beehives today... So, let’s sit
down and sublimate our position: we will write and we want to write about
writing and bees. Like, who was doing this, and why, and how?
First of all, we won’t bother you with a full overview of who ever mentioned
a bee in literature since antiquity. Besides, in 2001 Cristopher Hollingsworth
published the remarkable literary study The Insect Metaphor in Literature.
There, he explores from old Greek times to former postmodernism how famous
authors like Homer (the wild bees), Virgil (the domestication), Dante
(ascent to heaven), Milton (the fallen angels) to Conrad, Wells, Huxley, Sartre,
Delillo and many more, were treating the idea of bees and more specifically
the hive within their works. It is an outstanding overview of evolutionary
stylistics, exploring relevant analogies and metaphors, highlighting special
meanings and unique literary functions. Here are some lines from John Milton’s
Paradise Lost (1667)
Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air,
Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees
In spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides.
The Anthropomorphic Metaphors.
So now we had an autodidactic scientist-teacher, and a renowned writer.
Another crossover historian, writer and activist avant la lettre is, for sure, the
Dutch/English Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733). He started with translating
some of Aesop’s fables, for instance ‘The Wasps and the Bees’. He then published
a strange combination of texts, called The Fable of the Bees (1714). It
starts with the poem/fable ‘The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves turn’d Honest’
from 1705, adding a discussion in prose and some essays to it. As late as 1732
he wrote a second series of comments.
The Fable of the Bees combines a number of socio-political, religious and
economic ideas that caused a lot of offense in England at the time. It uses
the fable of the hive as a starting metaphor for an economic theory that
later would influence Adam Smith. In the poem a bee community is trying
to achieve honesty and virtue through cooperation. But, they lose the hive,
suggesting that personal luxury and consumption benefits the community
more than for instance common savings. He also disagreed on the fact that
virtue would be added by education, observing that evil existed as much
among the rich and educated, who are even more crafty. The texts are written
in a pamphlet-like style with a very direct and open opinion. In these
older works the aesthetic programme seems to be missing. He defends his
opinions. The hive is a mere metaphor for society.
The first historian who would attempt to embellish science would probably
be Jules Michelet (1798-1874). He published a first successful edition,
L’Oiseau (1856), but then wrote a dull and naive, sometimes very inaccurate
and superficial work L’insecte (1857). His motives are inspired by the wish to
write a poetry of science, by adding poetry and philosophy to science. A noble
initiative but exaggerated metaphoric and bombastic, and for that reason
almost unreadable now. How different from the subtle Fabre, the skillful
Maeterlinck and the earlier impassioned Mandeville:
The bee and the ant reveal to us the lofty harmony of the insect. Both, in their high intelligence,
are of superior rank as artists, architects, and the like. The bee is more, a geometer; the ant is
before all remark-able as an educator. The ant is frankly and strongly republican, having no need
of a living and visible symbol of the community, lightly esteeming and governing with sufficient
rudeness the soft and feeble females who perpetuate the race. The bee, on the other hand, more tender
apparently, or less reasoning and more imaginative, finds a moral support in the worship of the common
mother. For her community of virgins it is, so to speak, a religion of love. Among both the ants and
bees maternity is the social principle but fraternity also takes root, nourishes, and springs to a
glorious stature.
(The Insect p. 335)
The Dung-beetle, sated with days, becomes a patriarch and really deserves to do in consideration
of the services rendered.There is a general hygiene that calls for the disappearance, in the shortest
possible time, of every putrid thing. Paris has not yet solved the formidable problem of her refuse,
which sooner or later will become a question of life or death for the monstrous city.
One asks one’s self whether the centre of light be not doomed to be extinguished one day
in the reeking exhalations of a soil saturated with rottenness. What this agglomeration of millions
of men cannot obtain, with all its treasures of wealth and talent, the smallest hamlet possesses
without going to any expense or even troubling to think about it. Nature, so lavish of her cares
in respect of rural health, is indifferent to the welfare of cities, if not actively hostile to it.
She has created for the fields two classes of scavengers, whom nothing wearies, whom nothing repels...
(The Life and Love of the Insect p. 113)
Interestingly, Hollingsworth analyzes the theme across history as an active
rhetorical medium, a visual language tool bringing out different attitudes
about ‘otherness’ and the position of the (writer as) observer. Of course
the hive represents mostly the relationship between individual and whole
within the historical contexts of the prevailing social order and ideal state
models, the hive being the dramatic form that symbolizes the differences
and analogies. Ok-ok, I guess only a few of you reading out there will still be
interested by now.
He definitely is no Darwin, investigating the hexagonal shapes of the honeycomb,
fruitlessly trying to find the answer where to place nature’s instinct vs.
intelligence. No big research agenda for Fabre. He is just looking at insects,
trying to find out what they are doing, building a narrative and explaining.
Without decoration, except for the writer/observer, people seem to be absent..
Here is when he finally talks about Paris:
And soon the weather will be better anyway, and then we can stop writing
to make honey anyway. But in the meantime...
Definitely both a teacher and writer, and an amazing autodidact in entomology,
he became famous for his works on insects. Darwin would call him “the
inimitable observer”, though Fabre rejected evolution in favour of creationism,
not in the biblical sense but rather because he simply mistrusted systems
and big theories. Reading through ‘Les Insectes’ and ‘Souvenirs entomologiques’
one encounters a special style: a perfectly balanced, very clear
language in-between accuracy and lyrics. Here no difficult scientific terms,
no dramatic rhetorics either. His accounts of bees and wasps, spiders and
ants, are a questioning observation of the species within their natural environment,
related sometimes to a story on how he found it (on a walk, on a
school trip, ..).
Wasps, Human Sex, and the difference.
Lately, we came across an astonishing fact that immediately was met with a
lot of scepticism. Somehow the American Museum of Natural History in New
Is this still reflected nowadays on one hand in the bulk of popular scientific
writing, some ghostwriting for scientists and on the other hand in the writ
ing of horoscopes and gardening articles, books for TV cooks, or travel diaries?
Maybe we don’t have to see this - from within literature itself - as a popular
“divertissement” or escape strategy for not having to write the “true”
great works... but rather as an experiment by the writer, making a new genre,
a new textual expressivity, like sonification in music and visualization in
movies and interactives. Playing with scientific data: interdisciplinary, multimodal,
another content than expected, another imagination.
1.2.1.1.a BEE AND LITERATURE 1
1.2.1.1.a BEE AND LITERATURE 3
1.2.1.1.a BEE AND LITERATURE 5
Footnote 1.
Even Cole Porter would jump on the hype in the song ‘Too Darn Hot’ for the
musical ‘Kiss Me Kate’ (1948):
According to the Kinsey report ev’ry average man you know
much prefers to play his favorite sport when the temperature is low
but when the thermometer goes way up and the weather is sizzling hot
Mister GOB for his squab, a marine for his queen, a G.I. for his cutie-pie is not
Cause it’s too too too darn hot, It’s too darn hot, It’s too darn hot
Footnote 2.
For the complete sequence:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16664854/Bee-Poems-by-Sylvia-Plath
Unto Today.
Maybe there is more around, and this is only a modest attempt to see what
is to be learned from more than a century of interdisciplinarity and literature.
As we mentioned above, speech and language, together with for instance
sonification and visualization, could yield an original and combined
contribution to the arts. Provided it develops the appropriate tools, communication
styles, open and diverse forms with original points of view. The
different things that really make a difference, and not only promise to. But,
every hypothesis here has to remain a little utopia too. The hope is that more
original works will emerge, and new genres will develop before they can
be pinpointed and attached to norms, only to evolve into a creative myriad
of possibilities. Contradictions and differences, dissonance and noise, new
patterns and structures, new languages... But definitely, the experimental
exploration of a new artistic activity, related to scientific paradigms can be
realized with more verve than we hear, see, and read nowadays.
Back to some fiction. In 2009 the Canadian author Margaret Atwood published
The Year of the Flood. It is an apocalyptic and yet hopeful chaotic story
about ecosects, posthuman society, genetic technology, or whatever is now
at hand that will run out of hand. The Gardeners are central to the events.
And the bees.
Suddenly jumps up and goes to the window. ‘Ah, reminds me of my work
today’ ... ‘Yes! The rain has stopped, have to go’.. ‘So, bye, and better read the
book when you have time’ ... ‘Really have to go now, it is getting dry outside!’
... ‘Cannot spoil the fun by telling you the end of the story anyway’ ...
‘Ciao’... (standing in front of the window) ‘Euh... oh no, now it is getting dark,
so no chance today to open the hives and centrifuge the honey’ ... ‘Damn!’...
goes back to the desk and sits down...
Ok, I am back, so let’s end in beauty. Let’s sing a last song before we part. And
who better to voice it than the distinctive Sylvia Plath, who wrote 5 poems
shortly before her tragic suicide, dealing with bees, other people, her own
fears and vulnerabilities,... All of a fragile beauty.
From the poem THE BEE MEETING [Footnote 2]:
Who are these people at the bridge to meet me? They are the
villagers----
The rector, the midwife, the sexton, the agent for bees.
In my sleeveless summery dress I have no protection,
And they are all gloved and covered, why did nobody tell me?
They are smiling and taking out veils tacked to ancient hats.
I am nude as a chicken neck, does nobody love me?
Yes, here is the secretary of bees with her white shop smock,
Buttoning the cuffs at my wrists and the slit from my neck to my
knees.
Now I am milkweed silk, the bees will not notice.
They will not smell my fear, my fear, my fear.
1.2.1.1.a BEE AND LITERATURE 8
1.2.1.1.a BEE AND LITERATURE 7