New Montana-style Bee Apiary

A driver near Missoula created some buzz after being pulled over on Interstate 90 last week with thousands of bees in a sedan.

The Montana Highway Patrol received a call about noon May 22 from a motorist who saw another car that seemed to be filled with bees. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the vehicle was driving all over the road.

 

When troopers stopped the vehicle, they removed the driver from the red sedan. The driver told troopers that the “Russian honeybees” were “harmless,” according to the highway patrol report from the stop. There were five hives and thousands of bees inside the car.

Troopers contacted the state apiarist — Montana’s beekeeper-in-chief — who told them that having five hives riding shotgun was a “very unsafe” way to transport bees. However, the driver needed no permits to transport the bees through the state.

Troopers cited the driver for careless driving.

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Pixeled Owl

By Kyle Ploehn

Kyle PloehnKyle Ploehn is an artist, illustrator and writer living in Billings Montana. He likes to spend the few hours he isn't painting hiking the mountains of Montana.

The pixilation series is based on the idea of everything being digital. Anymore it's easier to spend your time finding cool things on the internet rather than go out into the real world to make your own memories. These pieces (The pixilation series) help me to balance the ease of using the internet and actually venturing out into the world. Being Montana born and bred, I've been out in nature all my life, however I fell into the trap of ease and negligence that the internet brings and still, to this day, struggle under it. I'm afraid the digital generation may overcome the physical world and leave wilderness protection and animal appreciation out in the cold, so to speak. The internet is a great tool and a wonderful connection, but these paintings are my fear that we may lose those real world beauties and wonders to digital images forever if we're not careful.

Barn owls are one of my favorite birds, and I'm always excited and pleased when I get the chance to see them in real life. So this painting helps remind myself to get out my chair and out of my studio to go seek out the real thing, not only for my art, but for my expanding wonder in our beautiful planet.

The original is still available, an 18x24, framed for $800.

Unmatted 11x14 prints are available for $30. Contact me at [email protected], if you're interested in purchasing a print or visit me at http://kyleploehnart.blogspot.com

Extraordinary Light

By Jenna Caplette

Jenna CapletteJenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation. A Healing Arts Practitioner, she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Integrative Healthcare. She says, " Health is resiliency, a zest for the journey. It’s about coming awake to the joy of being alive. As a practitioner, its a privilege to facilitate that healing process, to help weave new patterns of health & well-being.

Walking with my dog at near-sunset near Bozeman’s Cherry River Fishing access, I noticed a young man standing near a pickup in the parking lot for the trail. He stood unmoving, facing the setting sun, drinking in it’s light for as long as he could. It was a beautiful testimony to the power of light.

Light is the heart and soul, the essence of pictorial photography. In a literal sense, photography is painting with light.

Light has color, intensity, and direction. As spring lengthens toward summer, the light seems to warm. It hits an array of color that did not exist during the stark brown and white months of winter. Environmental influences like greening trees give light a different flavor.

Longer periods of high overhead light allow more opportunity to photograph little things, like delicate American Beauty and Spring Beauties tucked low in the shadow of surrounding grasses. When the light is intense, use a diffuser to soften it. A translucent diffuser can be an amazing aide in softening direct light for flowers that are in full sun. Or use lighting accessories like reflectors to catch and redirect available sunlight to fill shadows. Consider a gold reflector to mimic sunset light and warm colors.

Find a subject matter that excites you, and return to it in various qualities of light to experience how light defines an image. Go out on an overcast day. Look at the details rather than the whole picture. Practice noticing how light interacts with photographic subjects whether or not you have your camera with you. Look from the big picture to the smaller details.Recognize photographic opportunities; learn your camera and shoot often so it becomes an extension of your vision, rather than an interruption of it.

Light itself can be the subject of an image; though more often, a photographer will look for an object that expresses the light. While light is always one of the most important elements, photographing light itself – like a sunset – can create a pretty common image. On the other hand, evening light streaming through Thunderheads, or the sun setting through smoke-filled skies, can transform the mundane into a fiery magnificence.

The path that leads to capturing an extraordinary image is not the subject matter itself, but extraordinary light. Let your photography be a vehicle of exploration, for noticing and capturing how each season, each time of day, or night, expresses itself.