This Huge Man-Made Hive Sculpture Is Controlled by Bees’ Activity

Artist Wolfgang Buttress’ nearly 56-foot-tall, 40-ton sculpture The Hive has received multiple accolades since it won a gold award for architecture and landscape as the centerpiece for the U.K. Pavilion at the Expo 2015 in Milan.

Addressing the World’s Fair theme of “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life,” Buttress set out to highlight the plight of the honeybee and the vital role of pollination for the world’s food supply by building a monumental man-made hive from 170,000 aluminum pieces assembled to mimic the visual effect of a swarm of bees. The hive is embedded with thousands of LED lights that flicker and fade according to the real-time activity of bees.

Designed in collaboration with BDP and Simmonds Studio, the structure is the first British Pavilion to be repatriated and was installed Saturday at London’s Kew Gardens.

Buttress described the work in a press release as a “multi-sensory experience that integrates art, science and landscape architecture.” Light and sound levels wax and wane according to the nearby activity of British beehives, whose vibrations are monitored with accelerometers. The immersive experience is enhanced with a soundtrack that combines music from Kev Bales and Tony Foster with the ambient hum of 40,000 bees that the Guardian called one of the best albums of 2016 thus far.