Autumn 2022 I met conservationist Mick Verspuij in Buncranna, Donegal, Ireland. He makes natural habitats for bee hives using old dead tree trunks. Here he talks about pollen and the Sycamore Tree in his yard. He has a few tree stories for the Memory Palace of Trees Stories.
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Mick’s words:
A sycamore tree, a semi mature or a mature tree can produce up to half a million flowers, so it’s a crucial crop for the honey bees because it is quite early in the season as well. And it’s all around the time where the colony really needs it most because they are expanding their in numbers very rapidly. By having just one of those trees on the ground, the same match as half an acre of wild flowers, which is actually surprisingly good because as it only takes up a tiny bit of space, it is brilliant for the bees.
At the end of May start of June, it’s an ideal time because they bring in so much. Once that tree goes to flower its like someone has just switched on a hairdryer inside the tree because the noise it makes is phenomenal, it just hums for two solid weeks, the bees make sure they collect all the pollen from it and all the nectar.
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Tree Stories on Video
#1 Empty Tendrils
#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#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
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Open Call for your 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