A Bit of Bee Bling

I mentioned last blog that I was adding a bit of "bling" that might be in character with an automata built into the walls of a house. What could be more appropriate for a house in rural Ontario than have a few bees hanging around snooping in cracks and building nests. Bees were a natural choice as we have had bees nest in trees and in underground burrows on our property, along with assorted wasp's nests hanging around outside on buildings. 

You can also go back into my Automata Gallery page and look up a project called "DJ's Bee  Bop Palooza" that I made for a relative in the honey business. Those bees were much bigger than the ones I am undertaking now, since they involved moving parts. They were about 3-1/2" long if I remember, but these stationary ones will be only about 1-1/4" long, scaled to somewhat fit in with other characters in the automata.

The first step was to figure where they would go. I decided some should be added to moving parts in the automata to give some a  sense of motion while others will be scattered around the automata in stationary positions. I imagine myself challenging young visitors to see how many bees they can spot to further engage them in the automata. I also think that a small comb/nest could provide a potential grouping arrangement. So I examined my mechanism and picked my spots and I set out to build my fleet , or should I say swarm, of bees.

DISCLAIMER: I have taken a little liberty here. The nest I have made will appear more like a mud wasp nest we often find than the traditional honeycomb most bees we are familiar with make. In fact, most bees nests in walls end up shaped like large elephant's ears and are quite a size.  So I apologize to the die-hard  apiarists (bee keepers) out here in advance, but it just wasn't going to be. ( No pun intended!)

Alright, the first thing I did was to make a prototype. Here  is Billy #1 shown below.

Billy's mounting is a little different from the rest. He will be mounted on a turning wheel and needed an adjustable clearance, so he was made mounted on a small threaded rod. In this way I could adjust him to the height I wanted. When Installed you will not see the rod at all as it will be hidden behind a wheel. I also did not want him to fly off his mount due to centripetal forces!

His thorax is a 1/2" diameter wooden ball from a craft shop. His abdomen is made from a scrap piece of tupelo  shaped by hand with a maximum outside diameter of 1/2". HIs head is also shaped from scrap  tupelo. I use tupelo because it is light and easy to shape and sand. I use of combination of Dremel sanding and hand sanding to finish. Billy's wings are 1/32" thick pieces of Lexan cut out on a scroll saw, and all his legs and antennae are made from brass wire secured in holes with CA glue before painting.

In the next blog I'll show you the steps in making the bees and nest.