In April, OKNO organized a two-part bee monitoring workshop at Valldaura Self Sufficient Lab in Barcelona.
Prior to the event some of the Fab Lab Academy students had been building several beehives – one of which will be put in OKNO’s rooftop garden – making use of Warré’s principles and the OpenStructures system to make them more sustainable.
They had equally been developing a sensor-equipped measuring device that tracks the temperature and humidity changes on the inside and outside of the hive and as such reveals how ecological factors affect the bees’ behavior.
The Valldaura interns had been using material found in the surroundings to create a natural structure that will offer coolness and shadow to the Valldaura beehive on hot summer days.

During the first part of the workshop, the hive was assembled and placed in the area that had been prepared for it, and the appropriate technology was fabricated. The second series of working sessions was used to transfer a colony of European dark bees from the Catalan inland region to their brand-new home on the Valldaura premises. The pieces of technology were connected and set to work using solar panels, ready for studying the bees as bio markers disclosing environmental health.
Self Sufficient Labs, Valldaura, Barcelona