Creating a buzz at RHS Chelsea Flower Show: The Newt in Somerset presents Beezantium

We're delighted that The Newt in Somerset is returning as sponsor of our Chelsea Flower Show for the second year, and this time they are bringing Beezantium, an immersive experience offering insights into the mysterious life of the bee, through a scaled-up beehive surrounded by nectar-rich planting.

A bee's eye view

Designed to provide a sense of the world around us from the bee’s perspective, and hosted by gardeners and beekeepers, Beezantium is a human-sized hive that will help visitors understand the important role bees play in our global ecosystem, and why they need our protection. A multi-sensory honeycomb explores what happens inside a real hive, from how a colony shares information to the art of the ‘waggle dance’, revealing how and why bees create wax, and the importance of honey production. It looks at the colony as a superorganism and its relationship with humans, because everything in our ecosystem is connected.

The concept is inspired by the Beezantium exhibit on The Newt’s Somerset estate, which is situated in woodland surrounded by a specially planted Apiary and houses a selection of native honeybee colonies in observation hives. At Chelsea Flower Show, the hive will sit at the heart of an apiary garden created by The Newt in Somerset’s Head Gardener, Stephen Herrington, in collaboration with Head Beekeeper Paula Carnell. Bringing the buzz of the estate’s gardens to London, Stephen has created a beautiful feature, using pollinator friendly planting, for visitors to interact through touch, smell and sound.

Saving the bees

The installation aims to raise awareness of the plight of the humble bee and highlight the work being undertaken at The Newt to support this most critical of species. With decades of widespread chemical use and a shortage of food putting bees at huge risk across the UK, The Newt began its bee conservation programme in 2017. An estate-wide bee survey at the time revealed two native honeybee colonies and eight species of solitary and bumble bees. Fast forward six years, and today The Newt’s 1,000 acres are home to 20 honeybee colonies, along with 26 species of solitary and bumblebees, all of which play a vital role in The Newt’s wider land management strategy. From funding research to creating plant corridors that encourage natural migration of pollinators across the landscape, the team are committed to ensuring the estate is a safe place for all pollinators. To this end, none of the estate’s honeybee colonies are fed sugar or treated with chemicals, which has resulted in them adopting the characteristics of Apis mellifera mellifera, or ‘black bee’- previously thought lost or exceptionally rare in the UK. Fully adapted to their local environment, The Newt’s colonies buck the trend for mass winter losses and are gently increasing in size each year.

Immerse yourself in Beezantium at RHS Chelsea Flower Show from 23-27 May.