Our rooftop honeybees are Live from the Hive!

Live from the Hive is an exciting project created by At-Bristol Science Centre, BeeBristol and academics from the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences.

The project has created the world’s first live tweeting honeybees, @citybeehive and @countrybeehive, in an initiative that aims to engage people with the lives of the bees through innovative use of technology and social media. Both hives will tweet, in character, about the daily activity of the bees, triggered by live data collected and analysed as part of the scientific research looking at the impact of city living on honeybee colonies.

Visit the Live from the Hive dashboard

About Live from the Hive

How did the project come about?

In July 2015 we installed a beehive on our green roof to help urban pollinators, as part of our ongoing commitment to becoming the UK’s most sustainable science centre. Since then, two At-Bristol staff have been trained by BeeBristol to become beekeepers and look after the hive. Now the hive has been established, we have partnered with researchers from University of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences to conduct scientific research on our urban honeybees.

What is the research looking at?

The research is investigating whether human activity (e.g. pollution) has an effect on bee behaviour. A hive in rural Langford is being used as a comparison. Both hives contain a bee-counter, which measure bee activity, an air quality sensor, a weather station and an electric field monitor.

It is predicted that human activity will have an effect on urban bees as a result of 7 day cycles in air quality, due to pollution caused by Monday–Friday commuter traffic.

How can I take part?

From 28 May there will be a new exhibit in our indoor greenhouse in the Food! exhibition. The exhibit is an interactive dashboard that allows you to compare the behaviour of the two bee colonies in real time using live webcam images of the hives, graphs using live data including bee activity, air quality, weather and wind, and the latest tweets from the both of the beehives. You can also access this online.

To celebrate the launch of the project, Bee Movie will be screened on Big Screen Bristol in Millennium Square on 1 June 2016, for free! Live images of the hive will also be broadcast at regular intervals on Big Screen Bristol throughout the project.

Look our for a special live feed from inside our rooftop beehive which will be featured on the popular BBC programme Springwatch, running from 30 May for three weeks.