Queen Rearing in Sardinia.
- Greca Meloni
- Apr 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 3
A Visual Ethnography
by Greca N. Meloni
Can we tell ethnography without words? Can visual ethnography graphically tell a story?
The series of 19 ethnographic drawings on queen rearing in Sardinia is a provocative attempt to answer these questions. Based on my PhD research about beekeeping in Sardinia, the series silently explores the intricate relationships between environmental conditions, plant species, honeybees, and beekeepers.
I asked myself: What can ethnography contribute to the understanding of beekeeping that other disciplines cannot? What did I learn in the field that characterizes Sardinian beekeeping?
In answering these questions, I was inspired by the work of illustrators Thierry Dedieu, Marco Somà, Bruno Munari, and other children's silent book illustrators. From a methodological standpoint, I draw the first drafts on paper and then use Procreate to create a digital sketch. My practical expertise with artistic techniques stems from the artistic education I received at the Liceo Artistico Statale "Foiso Fois" di Cagliari, under the guidance of Beatrice Artizzu, Giampiero Mascia, and Ferruccio Sulis between 2000 and 2004. The high school was designed to provide the necessary expertise to enroll in the Art Academy right after the last year.
In my ethnography of Sardinian beekeeping, I propose that humans and bees mutually co-constitute each other in “flesh and blood”—or hemolymph. I argue that this particular form of companionship (Haraway 2003; 2008) is interwoven within the environment and among the multiple species that co-inhabit and co-create it. I call this the Human-Bee-Environment Relationship. The series of drawings on queen rearing exemplifies this intimate relationship.
Paul Katterl from the Vienna Visual Anthropology Lab (VVAL) helped design the exposition's dynamic layout.
The first drawing depicts a landscape in early February, when flowers start opening, releasing an overwhelming array of scents, colors, and buzzing life. Beekeepers observe bees foraging on early plants such as allu de carroga[i] (Allium triquetum L.), ollu de axedu (Oxalis cernua Thunb.), succiameli (Borago officinalis L.), and mendua aresti (Prunus amygdalus), which provide vital nourishment for bee colonies after winter. Other species — cardilloni (Asphodelus microcarpus), murdegu (mostly Cistus monspeliensis), tuvara (Erica arborea L.), and archemissa (Lavandula stoechas) — may yield distinctive Sardinian honey.
As these plants bloom, beekeepers begin their rounds to assess which colonies have survived winter and which are thriving.
They watch bees flying in and out of hives, checking if their pollen baskets are full. They note the number of bees pollinating and weigh the hive to determine the colony's health. A heavy hive suggests growth in the number of individuals and the quantity of stockpiles, while a light one may indicate trouble.
Then, they open the hive, lift a frame from the nest, and observe it: Is the queen laying eggs? How old are the eggs? Is there enough nectar and pollen near the brood? Are nurse bees tending to the young? Are there signs of swarming, such as elongated cells?
At this stage, beekeepers prepare artificial queen cells for breeding. Before transferring larvae, the beekeeper moistens the grafting tool with saliva, making it easier to lift larvae no older than three days and gently place them into the artificial cells. This is repeated until all cells contain larvae. The future queens are placed in a special frame inside a queen-rearing hive, where nurse bees feed and care for them. Not all of them. It might happen that only 30% of the larvae will be “accepted”. That is, the worker bees have total control over the success of this process. The decision is up to them, and beekeepers can only wait and hope. Usually, a queen emerges from her capped cell after 15 days. But the larvae used by beekeepers may even be five days older. Thus, the beekeeper must act promptly, removing capped cells after roughly 10 days and placing them into nucleus hives before the first-emerged queen kills the others.
The beekeeper then positions the nucleus hives with virgin queens in a secluded area, allowing them time to mate with multiple drones. About a month later, the beekeeper evaluates the colonies. If the nucleus hives are strong enough, the colony is transferred to a proper hive, where frames are arranged in the following order:
1. Nectar and pollen frame
2. Brood frame with the queen
3. Brood and food frame
4. Another nectar and pollen frame
5. Nectar frame
6. Two frames with new wax foundation
The beekeeper avoids disturbing the new colonies for several weeks. The process concludes when the queen lays eggs, the brood appears healthy, and bees are actively pollinating.
Queen rearing is a delicate practice that shapes future bee colonies and the environment. For instance, the saliva used to moisten the grafting tool carries a multitude of species from the human microbiota. Once placed in the queen-rearing hive, the larvae exchange bacteria and microorganisms that will define their gut microbiota — later passed to new bees when the queen begins laying eggs. Recent research suggests that bee microbiota interacts with the rhizomatic networks sustaining ecosystems and forests (Kakumanu et al. 2016; Hariprasath et al. 2025). In turn, bees bring environmental microbiota back to the hive, shaping the honey humans consume.
Through breeding practices, beekeepers manipulate both the bees bodies and the environment. They select behavioral traits suited to their beekeeping methods and relocate hives, altering pollinator dynamics within the ecosystem. Yet, I argue that this relationship is reciprocal: beekeepers consume pollen, nectar, royal jelly, and propolis from their hives. These products are chemically and molecularly linked to the environment as much as to the bees (Utzeri et al. 2018).
The drawing series offers a personal, interpretive lens into the multispecies world of Sardinian beekeeping. It invites viewers to immerse themselves in the interplay of elements shaping honeybees and humans in flesh and hemolymph. These drawings visualize my interpretation with a multispecies approach to the Human-Bee-Environment Relationship, demonstrating the power of drawing as a tool for and to disseminate ethnographic inquiry that transcends language.
[i] All the names of plant species are reported in Sardinian (Campidanese) in Italics with the scientific name under brackets.
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