Bee Art Lab

Bee Art Lab is a permanent part of Maajaam facilities. It is open for other artists to develop new add-on ideas or experiment with the existing ones.

Bee Art Lab was supported by VOICE EU project.

Bee Art Lab is a space for experimentation together with the bees. Bee Art Lab was created during research project to develop different add-ons for the standard Langstroth hive type. This most wildly used commercial hive type is optimised for honey production. The idea of this lab is to create new extensions for the hives to make possible other connection between humans and the bees.

Bee-port

“Bee-port” is an extension that add sensors for the movement of bees in and out of the hive. It consists of 20 entrances and a landing board. Each entrance has an IR LED and IR light sensor to detect the direction of movement of the bee. It allows to count for each individual entry and exit. This allows to use the data for bee counting, monitoring beehive activity during longer periods. The beeport also has integrated speakers to make the activity audible, playing different sounds on different actions.

Beeport electronics are based on open source beecounting project: https://github.com/hydronics2/2019-easy-bee-counter

Beeport counters have Ardiono microcontroller inside that can send data over serial to another device for further processing or generating sounds. Sound generation is made on Raspberry Pi board. Beeport is powered by 12V from solar charged battery. Power consumption is very low.

For inspiration take a look of these arists: https://bionisamp.wordpress.com/
https://daricgill.com/2024/05/03/art-with-bees/
https://annemariemaes.net/

Buzz Horns

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“Buzz horns” are electro-acoustic add-on that can be used to hear the sounds inside of the beehive. The horns are designed to amplify the sounds of the bees around 200-300Hz. Inside of the addon, there is a set of microphones and small speakers to re-play the sound through the horns. The electronic interface is added not to disturb the bees inside of the hive by opening a new hole for the sound. The sound can listened next to the beehive or recorded for further processing.

Hive Radio

“Hive Radio” is a portable device to allows listening to the beehive. A wired microphone is placed inside of the beehive and attached to the “Hive Radio”. The speaker is playing live what is happening inside. It is also possible to attach headphones for better listening experience.

It is also interesting to the beekeeper to leave the microphone inside of the hive and come back later to listen. The hive sounds different when not disturbed and could be pratically be used to estimate the health of the bee family.

Vax Studio

“Wax Studio” is an add-on to be placed on top of the beehive to co-create sculptures together with bees. It consists of insulated steel hood, glass container and beehive cover. To let bees make freeform sculptures, regular cover is replaced with one with a hole on top. Glass container is places on top where bees will have access. The whole thing will be covered by the steel hood to protect from heat and rain.

The glass container must be first prepared with beeswax based form, so it is easy for them to start building. The form is the creative output for the beekeeper and becomes a blueprint for the bees. When placed of top of the hive, bees will build on top the blueprint and interpret is as they wish.

It is best to use it when it’s the busiest flowering season, then they have the most need for new spaces. To encourage them to build in the studio, there should not be too much empty space inside of the hive. It might be possible to use it as an indicator of a fully built hive. When they start building there, beekeeper will know that the space is lacking.

During development of the add-on it did not work well. Probably because of lack of insulation, too much space in the hive and wrong timing.

The “Wav Studio” gives a safe and easy ability to co-create sculptural work together with the bees, marvel and research their abilities to construct in 3D space. It also allows for the visitors to peek inside of the hive safely.

For inspiration take a look of these projects and artists: https://www.instructables.com/member/JenniferBerry/instructables/
https://lovelygreens.com/honeycomb-built-into-jars-bees/
https://www.tomaslibertiny.com/
https://www.avaroth.ca/
https://ecoartasia.net/RRI/RRI_eng.html
http://www.aganethadyck.ca/
https://ukusepsivart.wordpress.com/installation/
https://www.instagram.com/the_bee_collective/