An obscure amount of time ago, a mysterious bee farm materialized on a sliver of land next to an overpass of the 5th Ring Rd. One day while on my daily commute, approaching the boxes, seemingly busy with bees, I looked upon the large containers and asked about acquiring their smallest jar. Asking what source the bees were collecting their pollen from, the apiarist indicated mostly trees, which seemed pretty reasonable. Because of the heat, the honey was loose as water and had an ambiguous sweet scent; I paid 26 Yuan for my 500grams and continued on my way.
Opening the jar at the office and tasting the substance for the first time, it became clear relatively fast that it was at least in large part not real honey, but some compound of sugar syrup and flavouring. It also didn’t thicken, and remained a viscous watery solution.
Some days ago I rode by again to find the whole enterprise had simply disappeared.
The bottle sitting in the office is now only a bulky golden trophy of willingness on both sides of an exchange; to make believe, and to believe; in making something from nothing and individual inventiveness, in experimentation and variability and all kinds of adventures. Now no longer even a mysterious substance whose origins are a mystery, it is simply a charmingly coloured unuseable residue; as a luminous, urinary-ethereal illusion, it glows and is a reminder of itself.
(originally posted on the Vitamin Creative Space blog, 17/07/2010)