Milan gets buzzier with 1 million bees in designer hives

MILAN — Italy’s money and vogue cash of Milan received a little buzzier on Thursday with a challenge that mixes biodiversity with art.

A bee collective launched 17 new colonies to new designer hives, bringing to 1 million the city’s inhabitants of honeybees cultivated by the Urban Beehives task. Creator Claudia Zanfi mentioned the task aims to “create an intersection among inventive language and biodiversity.”

The art is in the sort of hives created by global artists and the biodiversity will come from the bees, which help pollinate vegetation in the city’s expanding eco-friendly spaces.

The new hives were being introduced to their houses in the Cascina Merlata Park, 20 hectares (50 acres) of new park focused very last 12 months on land applied for the Expo 2015 World’s Truthful, which centered on food items, meals protection and nutrition.

The seven-year-outdated, prize-winning undertaking is aimed at educating the general public about the great importance of bees to the setting, even though boosting their population and developing a sweet deal with of honey. It really is billed as one particular of the largest city bee collectives in Europe, with hives put in 4 public parks in the metropolis.

“Urban Beehives is a redevelopment task of urban green by way of the reintroduction of bees in the town,’’ Zanfi explained. “There always have been bees in the metropolis, but generating a community place for them is what is new.”

Starting next 7 days, Zanfi’s team Eco-friendly Island will provide programs and workshops at the park on beekeeping and the bees’ important job in encouraging maintain a healthy earth.

Two decades back, the Rome-dependent Meals and Agricultural Corporation sounded an alarm that declining bee populations pose risk to world foodstuff safety and nutrition.

“The bees have a elementary function for our life, but also for the lifestyle of the world,” Zanfi reported.

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