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Electric Hive Spring 1999 at the Albert Hall NottinghamScore, backing track, practice recording and full programme available from ‘Science on Stage’Electric Hive is actually a composite title covering two completely separate shoes:
In Electric metal the chemistry of the electrochemical series comes under the dramatic spotlight as a series of parallels with the Victorian class system. Oxygen is the love interest and the metals are all blokes who are competing for her affections. Starting with lead as a working class plumber she progresses through the Rev. Obadiah Zinc to Viscount Aluminium and the Duke of Sodium. Electrodes are then introduced as an electric revolution which turns the whole system upside down in a glittering finale Hive is an examination of the workings of a beehive, which is closer to a workers tyranny than a monarchy despite having a queen...Joe Stalin would feel more at home than Queen Elizabeth. The setting is industrial, more Metropolis than English countryside as this is much closer to the reality of the hive. Metamorphosis is seen as an orgy of feeding followed by the ‘Little Death’ of pupation and the emergence of the new workers. We see the old queen die, worn out in a comic song of great relief and release and a duel to the death by two new pretenders to her unwelcoming throne. The use of the female pronoun is no accident as all the hundred thousand bees in the hive are sterile females with the exception of a few specially reared males, called drones who live the life of riley until the time comes for the mating flight. The one who wins loses his crown jewels and the rest lose their home. It’s a hard life, but no more than they deserve. Not so the worker who lives longer than her allotted six week life span and finds she is showing signs of fertility. This cannot be allowed and she is banished. No make believe here, if you watch carefully in the spring you can sometimes see such ejections taking place. That’s tough.
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