I met Conservationist Mick Vespuij in Buncrana Donegal more than a year ago. He gave a previous tree story #12 Bee Tree Sycamore. In this story #84 he talks a bit about his work on making hives for honey bees which are not for the purposes of collecting honey for humans but for creating natural hives for these pollenators whose habitat is swiftly decreasing ,
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Micks words:
Once they (trees) have matured, then they actually start to disintegrate, it’s at that stage then where you can get the possibility of cavity centre forming in the trees .
But because for now we are very health and safety aware, at the ending when it does start to decay we cut it down straight away .
So that’s why there is a huge lack of habitat for honey bees.
I use only wood that has died of natural causes, from storm damage or just old age or diseased wood then I hollow it out this way by hand. Then I add a floor and ceiling on it.
. I put different styles of roofing on it aswell. You can see one over there,
A few of my thatched roofs , just for more aesthetic purposes, but obviously the main purpose is to protect the log from water.
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#1 Teardrops After a Storm
#2 Pomegranate Tree
#3 Trees are like Humans
#4 Old Ash – A Real Survivor
#5 Tree Rings of Life
#6 A Very Weird Elf
#7 Old Crabapple of Wenhua Dian
#8 Standing Fast
#9 Feeling Good – Tree Song
#10 Forest Breath – Tree Story
#11 Protective Peach – Tree Story
#12 Bee Tree (Part 1) Sycamore
#13 Winter Apples
#14 Ancient Yew Trees
#15 Once I Counted Birds
#16 Family Oak
#17 When the Trees Say Everything
#18 Strawberry Tree
#19 Mother Oak and Baby Oak
#20 My Leylandii
#21 Chestnut Repotted
#22 Native Birch
#23 Ethan’s Tree
#24 Holding Trunk of Time
#25 Our Mother’s Legacy
#26 It Blossomed
#27 Always Trying To Hold Each Other Up
#28 Wollemi Pine
#29 Barrow Willow
#30 For What We Might Become
#31 Sheltering Beech
#32 Millennium Monkey Puzzle
#33 Monterey Cyprus
#34 Struggle On, Struggle On
#35 Like A Chestnut
#36 Head and Shoulders Above
#37 An Dair Sean
#42 Unusual Bauhinia
# 46 Berna’s Umbrella Tree
#47 Hawthorne , it gives and it gives
#48 Apple Tree Swing
#49 Forest Bathing 1
#50 Forest Bathing 2
#51 Mulberry -when Swiss watches were almost made in Waterford
#52 Prunus Kanzan , double blossom Cherry blossom
#53 Oak We absolutely love it！
#54 Pre-Famine Timber
#55 Slogged Apples
#56 Ash Determined to stay put
#57 Best Apple Tart in Headford
#58 Apple Tree of Clonmel
#59 Horizontal Arbutus Unedo
#60 Euonymus Zones
#61 How big they can get
#62 Autumn Maple
#63 The Magic of Moss
#64 Gallipoli and the Sycamore
#65 Liquid Amber
#66 Hardmount Chestnut
#67 Silver Birch – a gentle lovely ending
#68 Keeping Black Bird Company
#69 Tulip Tree
#70 Itea Iliciafolia
#71 Silver Birch Moonlight
#72 The Shape of it
#73 The Missing Gorilla
#74 The Tree House
#75 Bat Burglars
#76 The Perfect Conker
#77 Ginkgo Biloba and Sweet Gum
#78 Ash The Horse Whisperer
#79 Healers
#80 Fairy Ash
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Open Call for your just a minute Tree Story on video
Memory Palace of Tree Stories is a socio-ecological art practice which invites you to tell a story or share information about trees . It is a creative-led social enquiry of how we can live well for both personal and collective wellbeing. Your story can be any kind of tree story , a personal tree story, an ecological tree story , an environmental tree story, an historical tree story or even a botanical tree story. I do hope you can contribute a comment on how we can live better with the greater community of life.
The year 2023 we continue to gather your stories in the form of one minute videos and we are really looking forward to hearing your tree story . I can be contacted directly on this platform or on the contact page on this website.
Niamh Cunningham