Welcomed by farmers and gardeners alike, the docile, domesticated European honeybee have long operated as conspicuous agents of nature and agriculture. While honey bees are essential and have garnered much concern over declining health, IKEA’s research and design lab, SPACE10 is setting out to remind the public of their lesser known brethren ? the 3,999 other native bee species that play an even larger role in habitat health. Bee Home invites anyone to become an architect, builder, and neighbor in service of this vital species by giving these solitary bees a place to call home.

While hives are synonymous with honey bees, most bees live their lives alone. These native solo bees outwork their hive-minded European relatives, with a single solitary native bee capable of pollinating the same amount of flowers as 120 honeybees in the same amount of time. These bees do not produce honey nor hive, content to live in single occupancy holes ? found in wood, stone, or within the ground ? all habitats increasingly lost to human development. The Bee Home project offers visitors the opportunity to give native bees back much needed housing, hosting free downloadable plans accompanied with instructions to build bee hotels using dried hardwood at home.
Once a design is completed online, files are made available to download with assembly instructions to take to a local fablab or makerspace to build using computer-controlled tools such as a CNC milling machine.

Options include the he...