Five new ‘Dadant’ style Beehives have been designed, prototyped and installed at Valldaura Labs by ‘Ecological Interaction’ researchers led by Open Source Beehives designer and co-founder, Jonathan Minchin. The new hives have been populated with European Honey Bees brought from Tarragona, one of Catalonia’s most famous regions of Apiculture.

These Bees will support the pollination needed for the organic horticulture of the Valldaura gardens and will encourage and conserve biodiversity amongst the wildflower species of the north Collserola park. For current and future generations of researchers and residence at Valldaura, these hives will be a source of zero kilometre produce, of honey, propolis, wax and other medicinal extracts. One step further in the investigation towards self-sufficiency at the site.

The hive design is a digital adaption of a common European type known as the Dadant hive, it has improved features including an observation window, shaded entrance cover, ventilation controls and can be assembled without the need of screws and glues. The designs are made public and Open Source under the CC-BY-SA licence, so that anyone with access to a CNC machine or carpentry may be able to customise and digital fabricate their own version.

The Dadant hive designs are published on Minchin’s Git Hub page where all comments, adjustments and improvements to the OSbees citizen science programme are welcomed.

Jonathan Minchin

Twitter: @eco_interact

Insta: ecological.interaction