Short questions, short answers.

About 360 species of bee live in the Netherlands. The honey bee is only one of them, and is kept by beekeepers. The other species are wild bees. They do not make honey, but they are excellent pollinators. Many wild bees specialise in a single plant family. More than half are on the Red List.

In the countryside, wild bees struggle with pesticides, monocultures and vanished nesting sites. In the city there is less spraying and more variety. As a result, the number of wild bee species in Amsterdam is growing, while outside the city it is declining. The bee has become a refugee: a RefuBee.

Many wild bees fly only 100 to 300 metres from their nest. Food and nesting sites therefore have to be close together. That is why RefuBees works with small sites spread across the city, rather than one large nature reserve.

104 species of wild bee have been recorded in Amsterdam. We have therefore divided the city into 104 zones: each zone gets its own bee with its own plants. That way we do not help everyone a little, but each species in a targeted way.

A BeeTotem is a sculpture 2.8 metres high, 3D-printed from recycled plastic. It has five planters for a single bee species and an enlarged 3D print of that bee at the top. Next to it stands a bee hotel, above or below ground, matched to how that bee nests.

In the core of the totem, worms turn kitchen scraps from host families into compost. That feeds the plants. As a result, pollen and nectar may become more nutritious, and the flowers may give off stronger scent signals.

A kind of Tamagotchi for the totem. A script linked to the local weather station shows how much water and nutrition the plants and worms still have. Host families report with a single tap that they have given water or kitchen scraps.

A bee hotel is a nesting site. A totem is also a meeting place: residents care for it together, with small rituals. Totems have been used for thousands of years to bind a group together. That way, caring for the bee becomes something shared by the whole neighbourhood.

Enter your postcode on the adoption page. You will see which bee belongs to your neighbourhood and which flowers she needs, with shops where you can buy them organically. Then you can adopt her and stay up to date.

Host families give the worms in the totem kitchen scraps, keep the plants watered and tell their neighbours about it. They sign a simple covenant.

Not for the time being. The first totems in Amsterdam came about through citizens’ initiatives, such as Oost Begroot in Betondorp. That is where it stops, and we cannot help neighbourhoods to raise money. We are looking for funding through national grants. What you can do: adopt the bee of your neighbourhood or sign the bee covenant.

Email us at info@refubees.org. Questions that come up often are added to this page.

RefuBees is a long-running art and research project by artist and researcher Hans Kalliwoda, carried out by the Blindpainters Foundation, with a network of ecologists, botanists and residents.

RefuBees began in 2012. It is a prototype and a long-running case study: every totem is followed, and what works we carry over to the next one.