Apis Mellifera: Honey Bee a high-speed short video filmed by Michael N Sutton

Michael N Sutton wanted to film bees in high-speed

"Apis Mellifera: Honey Bee" a high-speed short from Michael N Sutton / @MNS1974 on Vimeo.

"I have wanted to film bee's for quite a while and luckily for me there happened to be an apiary in my town. Allen Lindahl owner of hillsidebees.com stepped up and allowed me to film his hives. It was 92 degrees out and the sun was bearing down, but I was told sunny days are when the bee's are most active. Without a bee outfit, I was ready to shoot. I was able to get pretty close to one of the hives (about one and a half feet) which was perfect for using the Canon 100mm Macro IS. I primarily filmed with the Canon 30-105mm Cinema zoom lens wide open. I also used a 300mm Tamron and a Nikon 50mm. I had my trusty Sound Devices Pix 240i as a field monitor and for recording ProRes via the HD-SDI out of the Photron BC2 HD/2K. It was very hard to track the bee's as they fly very fast and were getting a little bothered by how close I was to the hives. I was only stung three times which is pretty remarkable due to my proximity and my lens poking almost into the entrance way of the hive. I shot for approx 2.5 hours each day. It was so hot I got a pretty bad sunburn and the camera was hot enough to cook a fat porterhouse. There was a few moments that were intimidating when bee's started landing on my arms, face, in my ear and on my eye. I just stayed still and they went on their way with the exception of the three stings (1 on the arm, 1 on the neck and 1 under my ear). Bee's are actually quite docile and would prefer not to sting. They just want to make honey.
Shot/Dir/Edit by: Michael Sutton @MNS1974
Equipment used:
Camera: Photron Fastcam BC2 HD/2K high-speed S35 camera system w/ custom trigger & batteries (1000-6800fps) 2K, HD (1080p & 720p) and SD
Lenses: Canon 30-105mm Cine zoom, Canon 100mm Macro, Nikon 50mm, 300mm Tamron SP
Recorder: Sound Devices Pix 240i w/ Sandisk CF cards
Support: Kessler Crane Carbon Fiber Stealth, Manfrotto 516 head w/546GBK tripod
Music Licensed via:
Licensor's Author Username: lacisz
Licensee: Michael Sutton
Song: Dubstep Drift
audiojungle.net/item/dubstep-drift/4234563
Item ID: 4234563
Purchase Date: 2014-07-01 23:08:46 UTC
Special thanks to:
Mike Cohen
Allen Lindahl of Hillside Bee's
Heather Sutton
Eric Kessler and Chris Beller of Kessler Crane
Contact: Michael Sutton
website: frozenprosperity.com
email: mike at frozenprosperity dot com
phone: listed on website
twitter: @MNS1974
&
@frozenpros"

A year in the life of a Bramley Apple Tree - June 7th

 

The shade of the ancient bramley apple trees has been much appreciated over the past few days!

 

Our tree is laden with baby apples though many will drop during June as it "self-thins"

June is a glorious month to spend time in an orchard.

I'm following this 100 year old Bramley Apple tree with Loose and Leaf 's follow a tree, the tree itself can be found in the orchard at The Orchard Tea Room & Farm Shop.

A year in the life of a bramley apple tree - May 7th 2014

Here's a photograph of the 100 year old bramley apple tree I'm following with Loose and Leaf 's follow a tree, as you can see it's not the only ancient tree in the orchard at The Orchard Tea Room & Farm Shop,  a whole row of bramleys that are around 100 years old. Many of them hollow with boughs touching the earth but still producing apples.
 

The blossom has all but gone on these trees just a few flowers clinging on though the high winds of the last few days will probably finish them off too.

But here are a couple of photographs from earlier in the month

bramley apple blossom buds and

in full blossom. Glorious isn't it?

A Year in the Life of a Bramley Apple Tree - 8th April

I'm a little late with my follow a tree with Loose and Leafy post this month, but better late than never as they say.

Firstly I thought I'd show you close-ups of my chosen tree, a (almost) 100 year old Bramley Apple tree that can be found in the orchard at The Orchard Tea Room & Farm Shop.

As you can see the tree has not escaped damage during its' long life. Part of it is hollow, possibly caused by a branch falling long ago. But there is plenty of life there.

The branches are encrusted with mosses up to 16 different moss species have been found on the old Bramley trees in this particular orchard:

SCIENTIFIC NAME	COMMON NAME	NOTES
Amblystegium serpens	Creeping Feather-moss
Brachythecium rutabulum	Rough-stalked Feather-moss
Bryum capillare	Capillary Thread-moss
Ceratodon purpureus	Redshank
Cryphaea heteromalla	Lateral Cryphaea	A Clean Air species
Dicranoweisia cirrata	Common Pincushion
Frullania dilatata	Dilated Scalewort
Grimmia pulvinata	Grey-cushioned Grimmia
Homalothecium sericeum	Silky Wall Feather-moss
Hypnum cupressiforme	Cypress-leaved Plait-moss
Hypnum resupinatum	Supine Plait-moss
Orthotrichum affine	Wood Bristle-moss
Orthotrichum diaphanum	White-tipped Bristle-moss
Orthotrichum lyellii	Lyell's Bristle-moss	A Clean Air species
Rhynchostegium confertum	Clustered Feather-moss
Syntrichia laevipila	Small Hairy Screw-moss
Syntrichia montana	Intermediate Screw-moss
Syntrichia papillosa	Marble Screw-moss	A Clean Air species
Ulota bruchii	Bruch's Pincushion	A Clean Air species
Ulota phyllantha	Frizzled Pincushion	A Clean Air species
Zygodon conoideus	Lesser Yoke-moss

The tree is almost in blossom, I'll get some photographs for you as the buds open.

A year in the life of a Bramley Apple Tree - March

 Bramley Apple Tree

I'm following a tree with Loose and Leafy.

My chosen tree is a Bramley Apple tree, this particular tree is believed to be about 100 years old and can be found in the orchard at www.theorchardtearoom.co.uk

The very first Bramley apple tree was grown from seeds planted by a young Mary Ann Brailwood, in the garden of her parents house in Southwell, Nottinghamshire in the year 1809. Although the original Bramley tree suffered a horrible accident during a violent storm in the year 1900, the strong winds ripped the tree from the ground, it has survived and continues to produce Bramley apples to this day. So the tree I'm following is mere youngster by comparison but still ancient for a commercial orchard.

Pruning Apple Trees

It's that time of year again, time to prune the fruit trees. Trees will try to grow upwards but we don't want them to so they have to be pruned.

Quite a big job on these old bramleys.

For anyone who is interested in learning how to prune their own fruit trees take a look at these Pruning Fruit Trees Courses

Wassailing ~ A Happy New Year

It's not a Fenland custom but they've been Wassailing orchards to scare off evil spirits and encourage the apple trees into growth for hundreds (maybe thousands) of years in Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire.

Here's to thee, old apple tree,

That blooms well, bears well.
Hats full, caps full,
Three bushel bags full,
An' all under one tree.
Hurrah! Hurrah!

Christmas Landscape

Christmas Landscape

Tonight the wind gnaws
With teeth of glass,
The jackdaw shivers
In caged branches of iron,
The stars have talons.

There is hunger in the mouth
Of vole and badger,
Silver agonies of breath
In the nostril of the fox,
Ice on the rabbit’s paw.

Tonight has no moon,
No food for the pilgrim;
The fruit tree is bare,
The rose bush a thorn
And the ground is bitter with stones.

But the mole sleeps, and the hedgehog
Lies curled in a womb of leaves,
The bean and the wheat-seed
Hug their germs in the earth
And the stream moves under the ice.

Tonight there is no moon,
But a new star opens
Like a silver trumpet over the dead.
Tonight in a nest of ruins
The blessed babe is laid.
And the fir tree warms to a bloom of candles,
And the child lights his lantern,
Stares at his tinselled toy;
And our hearts and hearths
Smoulder with live ashes.

In the blood of our grief
The cold earth is suckled,
In our agony the womb
Convulses its seed;
In the first cry of anguish
The child’s first breath is born.

                                            Laurie Lee

 

 

Wishing you and yours a very 

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year

After Apple Picking by Robert Frost

 

 

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it's like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep. 

   Robert Frost

A Foggy Fenland Orchard

The last couple of days have been cold and  foggy and the orchards have been swathed in fog, lovely and atmospheric. The leaves are still clinging to the old Bramleys making for an autumnal scene but the Worcesters are completely bare now.

Such different views to that of the Idared apples at the beginning of the month

Record the Day ~ 1st December 2013

I know I said that the apple picking was almost over but take a look at the apples on this tree. Photograph taken today the first day of Advent.

Actually these Idared apples have been left deliberately by the proprietors of the Orchard Tea Room & Farm Shop. The tree is on the edge of their car park and customers like to take photographs of this wonderful sight.

Other Record the Day posts:

July 18th

April 18th

April 28th

May 27th

The Apple Picking Post

Well it's almost over, apple picking started late this year and the wet autumn has made it pretty tough going, there have been days when it really wasn't fit to take tractors into the orchard to bring in the bins full of picked apples. Mud really is the scurge of all types of farming from fruit growing, to potatoes, to wheat, the list is endless.

Anyway enough of moans about the British weather here are some apple picking pics taken on sunny days!

Happy Apple Day!

Today, 21st October is Apple Day.

Apple Day was launched in 1990 by Common Ground. The aspiration was to create a calendar custom, an autumn holiday. From the start, Apple Day was intended to be both a celebration and a demonstration of the variety we are in danger of losing, not simply in apples, but in the richness and diversity of landscape, ecology and culture too. It has also played a part in raising awareness in the provenance and traceability of food.

Here's some information about the very first Apple Day taken from the Common Ground Website

"The first Apple Day celebrations, in the old Apple Market in London’s Covent Garden, brought fruit to the market after 16 years’ absence. Forty stalls were taken. Fruit growers and nurseries producing and selling a wide variety of apples and trees rubbed shoulders with juice-and cider-makers, as well as writers and illustrators with their apple books.
Representatives of the WI came laden with chutneys, jellies and pies. Mallorees School from North London demonstrated its orchard classroom, while the Hertfordshire & Middlesex Wildlife Trust explained how it manages its orchard for wildlife. Marks & Spencer helped to start a trend by offering tastings of some of the 12 ‘old varieties’ they had on sale that autumn. Organic growers were cheek by jowl with beekeepers, amidst demonstrations of traditional and modern juice presses, a calvados still and a cider bar run by the Campaign for Real Ale. Experts such as Joan Morgan identified apples and offered advice, while apple jugglers and magicians entertained the thousands of visitors – far more than we had expected – who came on the day.
For two weeks before Apple Day, in a marquee on the Piazza, Common Ground exhibited the photographs of West Country Orchards we had commissioned from James Ravilious alongside a display of more than 100 different apple varieties. People were amazed at the diversity of shapes, sizes and colours. We also offered lunchtime tastings of some of the varieties on show, and many people bemoaned the lack of such choice on supermarket shelves.
We will never know just how many people came to that first celebration – it was certainly thousands and even now we meet people who effuse about it as a memorable event. Many wanted it to be repeated, but our intention was to spread the idea far and wide, encouraging people to celebrate Apple Day for themselves in their own city, village, parish, allotment or garden orchard.
And so the tradition of Apple Day began. Over the next few years, the number of events being organised around the country grew from more than 60 in 1991 to 300 by 1997 and over 600 in 1999, some attracting thousands of people. Apple Day has played a part in raising awareness not only of the importance of orchards to our landscape and culture, but also in the provenance and traceability of food. It has been one impetus behind the developing network of farmers’ markets and is helping people everywhere to discover they are not alone in valuing the links between food and the land, between natural resource use and the impact we have on nature."

Image via  Common Ground

Dragonflies in the Orchard

The sun came out late this afternoon, it was surprisingly warm for so late in October. Along with the sun came the dragonflies, it was nice to take a few moments to watch their aerial display. Despite having spent a wonderful afternoon at the now sadly defunct National Dragonfly Museum at Ashton Mill in Oundle some years ago I don't know enough about these beautiful insects to name them. Not sure if this is a Norfolk Hawker (Aeshna isosceles).

Apple Picking Then and Now

In years gone by pickers would pick straight into these bushel boxes, the ones that are now extremely popular for storage, display etc. Each box would take 40lbs of apples and the pickers moved them by hand. Hard work indeed.

These days apples are picked into these large bins which are moved around by tractor. Maybe not quite as back breaking as having to lug a wooden box with 40lbs of apples in it but they do take 36 apple picking basket loads to fill each one so it's still very hard work.

Apple Crafts from The Crafty Crow

The Crafty Crow is a children's craft collective which specializes in crafts found on weblogs of creative people who either have, or work with, kids. There is an emphasis on projects inspired by nature, crafts that make use of recyclable materials and open-ended art meant to bring families closer together through the creative experience.

It's collated by Cassi of Bella Dia.and she has gathered together some super crafts to enjoy with the kids that feature apples. Things like recycled CD apple and apple print bunting.

So if you're looking for something creative to do with the children go take a look at The Crafty Crow's Favorite Apple Crafts

 

When apple pie goes viral

When Alicia Paulson blogs It's Pie Time on her Posie gets Cozy people all over the world start baking pie. Not just any pie but Sour Cream Apple Pie 
People like:
 Leigh Metcalf of Found New Home
Sue of The Quince Tree
Ali of Domesticali
You might want to try it for yourself

Slugs come out to play

It's been a hot summer and the slugs have been in hiding for fear of desiccation but a few drops of rain have brought them out in force.

Today I could barely take two steps without spying a slug.

Greater plantain seemed to be a favourite food. For those of you interested in the anatomy of these gastropods I found this little diagram on Wiki (en:User:Billlion   licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 )

You can see the Pneuomstome clearly in the second photograph it's a respiratory opening, easy to see when open but hard to find when closed as in the following photograph:

Apple Picking Bins

Apple picking time is upon us and up and down the country you'll see nicely regimented rows of bins in the orchard aisles waiting to be filled, for a wise apple grower makes sure that his bins are in good order, taking care of the necessary repairs, well before picking begins. But of course as with most things in life there is always one who leaves everything to the last minute. This particular grower has been known to hand his pickers a hammer and a selection of rusty nails, that or baling twine. Some folk never learn.

Hedgerow Plums - Food for Free

It's plum season and you'll find loads of fresh picked English plums in your local farm shops now, buy them straight from the orchard grower for real freshness, most pick daily and sell out before the end of the day.

 

But while you're out and about this Bank Holiday weekend keep your eye out for wild plums in the hedgerows. Whilst not as big as cultivated plums and maybe not quite a "plummy" tasting they are food for free and can still be utilized for jams, chutneys and pies.

And of course some make very good Damson Gin!