bees
bee_monitoring_workshops

1. The Theory + Reading List
2. The new BeeHives + ObservationBeehives
3. The Data Harvesting (Technology)
4. The Artworks and Projects
5. The HoneyComb

Just to start with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycomb

Bees were very important in the daily life of ancient Egypt.

the hieroglyph sign for 'bee'
In ancient Egypt, the bee was an insignia of kingship associated particularly with Lower Egypt, where there may even have been a Bee King in pre-dynastic times. After the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, this symbol was incorporated in the title usually preceding the throne name of pharaoh and expressing the unity of the two realms, He of the Sedge and of the Bee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_%28mythology%29

DIAPER (derived through the Fr, from the Gr. διά, through, and ἄσπρος, white; the derivation from the town of Ypres, “d’Ypres,” in Belgium is unhistorical, as diapers were known for centuries before its existence), the name given to a textile fabric, formerly of a rich and costly nature with embroidered ornament, but now of linen or cotton, with a simple woven pattern; and particularly restricted to small napkins. In architecture, the term “diaper” is given to any small pattern of a conventional nature repeated continuously and uniformly over a surface; the designs may be purely geometrical, or based on floral forms, and in early examples were regulated by the process of their textile origin. Subsequently, similar patterns were employed in the middle ages for the surface decoration of stone, as in Westminster Abbey and Bayeux cathedral in the spandrils of the arcades of the choir and nave; also in mural painting, stained glass, incised brasses, encaustic tiles, &c. Probably in most cases the pattern was copied, so far as the general design is concerned, from the tissues and stuffs of Byzantine manufacture, which came over to Europe and were highly prized as ecclesiastical vestments.

encyclopedia brittanica, the gutenberg project (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32607/32607-h/32607-h.htm)