Plan Bee
By:
April 12, 2011
Distributed networks are not just for Silicon Valley. Or silicon alleys — Plan Bee in the UK proposes an carbon-based distributed network — composed of wildflowers — aimed at increasing the bandwidth of bees.
The causes of the great honeybee die-off are multiple and elusive, and may include pesticides, viruses, monocultures and bussing, and loss of varied wild habitat. But the solution, or a solution, may be multiple as well.
Plan Bee reinvigorates insect urban planning, growing bee corridors or “roads” composed of various wildflowers, through which bees can fly and hopefully feed and thrive. But the corridors don’t need to be continuous — just close enough that a bee could fly from one patch to another, and return to dance the trail.
The great thing about distributed networks is that you don’t need consensus, or monolithic Modernist structures (or infrastructures). You don’t need heavy investment. You don’t need to change your life. Much. You just need nodes. In this case, enough back yards, or highway shoulders, can be nodes. Then you seed them, and let live transmission begin.
And we could dance. Let’s help the bees keep dancing, as well.
Bee image by Dave McCarthy and Annie Cavanagh, from the Wellcome Image Awards 2011