National Museums Liverpool Blog - Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Just when I'd said this was a slow news week this story appears. We have a resident colony of honey bees on the roof of World Museum Liverpool which seem to have fancied a change of scenery. I'll leave Paul Finnegan, the Bug House Team leader at World Museum Liverpool, to explain:

"A member of staff reported a large swarm of bees in a cherry tree just outside the Museum entrance. I went down to inspect it and there was a swarm containing around 12,000 bees. Honey bees swarm in July and it’s the bees way of reproducing. The original queen produces a new or several new queens to take over the hive. The original queen then leaves the hive followed by half of the worker bees. When the queen settles all the workers which followed her cluster around her and rest in a nearby tree or other upright object such as a lamp post and then after a couple of days find a suitable nest site to begin a new colony (usually a few miles away).

Because the bees which swarmed are ours, we are responsible for them and have to gather the swarm into a container to protect the public. After putting my bee-keeping suit on and getting a ladder and a cardboard box I climbed up the ladder and attempted to knock the swarm into the cardboard box. This was awkward as there were too many branches in the way and I couldn’t seem to get the queen. By this time a crowd had gathered, fascinated by such a sight. I then fetched a saw and sawed off the branch that the bees had gathered onto. I then climbed down the tree, clutching the bee covered branch and placed it into a box. All of the remaining bees attracted to the queen in the box then followed her, and when most of the bees were in I closed the lid. Job done - swarm collected and the public safe. I then contacted a local bee keeper who then met me and took the bees off our hands (the bees we keep are Hawaiian Honey Bees as all of the English Honey Bees are now extinct due to a nasty disease which is spread by the Asian Varroa mite)."

More information on the bug house, including how to attract bees to your garden (although maybe not 12,000), can be found on the main site.

Walker Art Gallery Education Officer Peter Betts's picture of the month talk on 'Baalbec - Ruins of the Temple of Bacchus' is now available to download from our website (mp3/transcript/links).

The talk highlights the remarkable life story of the artist David Roberts, who began his career as a scene painter for a travelling circus and by the age of 55 was commissioned by Queen Victoria to paint the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Peter's talk also covers a short history of the Walker's picture of the month series, lithographs, the birth of the daguerreotype, an architectural appreciation of the world heritage site of Baalbek and a film enthusiast's appreciation of Julia Roberts's teeth.

The telescope being carefully removed from the gallery.

It's been a bit of a slow week news-wise in the web office, so I'm reduced to posting an interesting photo that was taken some weeks ago now. It's a rather large telescope being permanently removed from what was then the Conservation Centre (now the National Conservation Centre). The telescope is a replica of one used by William Lassell, a Liverpool astronomer. The original was the first telescope mounted equatorially to allow tracking of the stars over long periods. Lassell is famous for having discovered several planetary satellites including Triton, moon of Neptune (1846) and Ariel and Umbriel, satellites of Uranus (1851).

Actually, while the night skies are so clear it might be a good time to get out there and see what you can see. Our Nightwatch section will help you identify what you spot.

The Shipwrecked exhibition was launched in style at the weekend with a special opening event on Saturday evening. Special guests at the launch were the members of the Shipwrecked club.

Over the last 6 months the club members, all aged between 4 and 10, have thoroughly tested some of the key elements of the exhibition. The good news is that they were all impressed with the results of their hard work.

You can see one of the evening's activities below. The events programme will continue throughout the exhibition, with lots of similar survival-themed activities for visitors to try.

Roleplayer Emma Walmsley shows visitors what food they might have to eat if they were shipwrecked

Museum staff can find themselves doing all sorts of funny things in the name of making a living. Take for example the people who have been furiously working away this week to get the Shipwrecked exhibition ready in time for the opening tomorrow. When I popped in yesterday, somebody was hoovering what looked like a sandy beach. I suppose even desert islands need to be kept neat and tidy.

The people with the most unusual job however were probably the shipkeeping department. Normally they earn their living by conserving and caring for the ships and historic vessels in the collections. However, they were asked to make a wreck as a centrepiece for this exhibition.

The wreck has been beautifully constructed from scratch - to paraphrase the movies, no historic vessels or animals were harmed in the making of this production. A very fine wreck it is too, as visitors to the Merseyside Maritime can see when the exhibition opens, from 15 July 2006 to 20 May 2007. 

An Atlantic Grey Seal

Remember a couple of weeks ago I told you about my trip to Hilbre Island to see the seals there? Well, if you don't fancy the 2-mile walk across the sand and a leisurely cruise is more your thing, then you might be interested in the wildlife cruises we are running in conjunction with the RSPB and Mersey Ferries.

Enjoy 3 hours in the company of our knowledgeable staff who will be pointing out all the wild inhabitants of the Mersey estuary (there are more than you think). There will be telescopes and binoculars available to borrow on the day so don't worry if you don't have your own.

More details, including how to get your ticket, are on our main website.

This morning there was a presentation for the three winners of the Stubbs exhibition label writing competition at the Walker. The youngest winner, Frances age 6, is pictured proudly holding up her copy of the label she wrote. Could she be a future curator at the Walker Art Gallery?

You can now read all the winning labels in the exhibition or on the Stubbs exhibition website. The website also includes some of the highly commended runners up.

County Session House Image © English Heritage

Yep, we're on TV again. Just as well you can't get enough of us. This time we're on Channel Five's 'Buildings That Shaped Britain' at 8pm tonight. In the spotlight will be the County Sessions House which, in case you don't know, was once a court and now houses staff from the Walker Art Gallery. It's been used as the set for a number of court room scenes on film and TV.

Apologies to our overseas readers who miss these televisual treats.

The Bug House at World Museum Liverpool's latest outreach project gives schools the opportunity to run a series of experiments with stick insects. All of these experiments fit into the key stage 3 curriculums for Science, Maths and English.

Schools are given all the equipment to care for their stick insects and run the experiments.

The species of stick insect used is Carausius morosus - the Indian or laboratory stick insect. It is an easy to keep, hardy species that will feed on a wide variety of food plants. The lifecycle is completed fairly quickly enabling the schools to witness every stage in the insect’s development.

A Bug House demonstrator visits the schools and helps set up the stick insects vivarium and run through all the experiments. The schools are also given a detailed pack explaining how to care for the stick insects as well step by step instructions on how to run the experiments. This includes student and teacher handouts and answer sheets.

Interested schools should contact Jenny Dobson, Bug House demonstrator.

Ricky Tomlinson meets Crackers

You might remember that a few weeks ago Ricky Tomlinson recorded the voice of Crackers the Crab - your guide to the Shipwrecked exhibition which opens next weekend. Ricky popped in to see progress on the gallery and to meet his alter ego in person. He said he felt like Sponge Bob standing next to Crackers and was looking forward to bringing his grandson for a visit.

There's a preview of the gallery and a sample of Ricky's vocal work here.

Meadow is an installation at World Museum Liverpool highlighting litter and recycling issues. Children have been working with artists to create flowers out of plastic materials that would usually be sent for landfill.

The partnership project is led by the National Wildflower Centre in Knowsley and is free to view at World Museum Liverpool until Thursday 24 August.

The meadow is still growing and there are events at the Prince's Park Carnival (5 August 2006) and Knowsley Flower Show (6 August 2006) allowing children to create new flowers for the meadow.

More information (including a teachers resource pack) is available from the National Wildflower Centre on 0151 738 1913.