NIC DOWSE (HONEYFINGERS) + FRIENDS will share experiences of urban bee-keeping. ADRIAN DYER & SCARLETT HOWARD (RMIT) will share their research on bee cognition and communication. NICK RITAR (MILKWOOD) will offer observations as practitioners of natural bee-keeping.

European honey bees are highly social creatures with complex modes of communication. When we speak of the language of bees, we may be referring to the range of actual vocalisations and psycho-mechanical vibrations bees use to share information and ideas with each other. Or, we may be speaking of the abstract visual language of flowers, and their various appeals made to pollinators via shimmering stripes and bee-oriented colours, textures and shapes. Either way, distinct bee vocabularies and registers exist - if usually at a level just below the limit of everyday human understanding.

This workshop brings together leading bee experts to share their experience of paying attention to bees, and generate dialogue about bees, flowers and humans. Among the questions the workshop may address are: How does a bee perceive the world? What role does sound play in bee culture, and what shifts in our human awareness are required not just to hear but to understand what we are hearing? What are the implications of insect intelligence for rethinking the interplay between the local and the temporal?

This event is one branch of the WHY LISTEN TO PLANTS? exhibition program at RMIT Design Hub. Plants know worlds, they contain worlds and they make worlds.