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Join in

Adopt a wild bee.

Plant the flowers of the bee that belongs in your neighbourhood. On your balcony, in your garden or in a facade garden. That way you become part of the network.

A resident and a child planting at a BeeTotem

In short

Become a host family for a totem.

Together with the neighbours you look after water, plants and the worms, and keep track of who comes by. Sign the bee covenant and email it to info@refubees.org.

Example · Betondorp

Your bee

Tree bumblebee

Bombus hypnorum · Betondorp zone

Read the news →

Her flowers

  • Common hawthorn · flowers in May
  • Common comfrey · flowers May to July
  • Blackthorn · flowers in March and April

Get them from a wild plant nursery: Cruydthoeck, NatuurlijkSterker or Sprinklr. You adopt with your name and email address.

How adopting works.

  1. 1Find your beeYour postcode sets the zone, and the zone sets the species.
  2. 2Plant her flowersYou receive the pack of plants she needs.
  3. 3Watch and shareSee who comes and share what you spot with the neighbourhood.

For residents and businesses

Sign the bee covenant.

In Amsterdam you sign up with a bee covenant. You then look after a totem together with the neighbourhood: watering, adding plants, keeping track of who comes. Fill in the covenant and email it to info@refubees.org.

Read the covenant (pdf)

For neighbourhoods and municipalities

A totem in your neighbourhood?

For now, no new totems are coming in Amsterdam. The first totems came through citizen initiatives such as Oost Begroot. That is where it stops, and we cannot help neighbourhoods raise money. We are looking for funding through national grants. Want to do something now? Adopt the bee of your neighbourhood or sign the bee covenant.

Ask a question

For schools

Learning at the totem.

Lessons outdoors, the BeeCircus and projects with students.

Education and BeeCircus