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The Day the Bees Arrived
For the last three Fridays, we’ve been telling you a story.
It started four years ago with something that wasn’t there. Midgies.
Then came a decision to let part of the grounds at ECAT House grow a little wilder. The midgies returned. Then the butterflies. Frogs appeared. Hedgehogs followed. Lorna started wondering what else they could do. That led to bees. Which led to OpenHive’s Round Tower Project. Which led to a rather magnificent wooden structure appearing in the grounds of ECAT House, before being promptly renamed the ECAT Bee Rocket.
Last week, we had scouts. They’d found the Bee Rocket. They’d investigated it. And somewhere nearby was a colony looking for a new home. There was only one question left.
Would they choose ours? We got our answer.
The Bees Were Coming
Lorna was there when it started.
And this time, it wasn’t a handful of scout bees visiting the Round Tower. It was the colony.
The bees had chosen the Bee Rocket.
Thousands of bees filled the air around the structure as the swarm arrived at its new home. Fortunately for us, Lorna got her phone out. And started filming.
It’s quite something to watch. Not least because nobody put these bees there. The Round Tower had been installed as an empty nesting space. A little lemongrass helped attract the attention of scouts, but from there, the decision belonged to the bees. They found it. They investigated it. And they chose it.
Lorna, You Might Want to Move…
There was, however, one slight drawback to having the best view in the house. Lorna was quite close. Very close, actually. As the air filled with bees, she realised that suddenly walking through the middle of them probably wasn’t the best idea. So she did something we’re not sure would appear in the official wildlife-filming handbook.
She lay down in the grass. And stayed there. And kept filming. Fair play, Lorna.
The result is the footage you can watch above: a wild honey bee colony arriving at the Round Tower and making the ECAT Bee Rocket its home.
They Chose It
That matters.
OpenHive’s Round Tower Project isn’t about installing managed colonies for honey production. The log hives are designed to mimic the natural tree cavities honey bees would historically have used for nesting, providing potential homes in a landscape where those spaces have become increasingly scarce. The project aims to support wild colonies that can live with minimal intervention while helping conserve resilient, locally adapted populations of Ireland’s native honey bee.
One of the project’s measures of success is simple:
Will bees actually choose these structures and establish colonies in them?
At ECAT House, we now know the answer to that question.
Yes. Ours has residents.
Mission accomplished.
There’s something rather lovely about looking back at where this story began.
Four years ago, there was no Bee Rocket. There wasn’t a biodiversity strategy behind what happened next. Lorna had simply noticed that some of the wildlife she expected to see around ECAT House wasn’t there anymore.
Even the midgies were missing. So part of the grounds was given a little more space to do its own thing. Gradually, life started returning.
Midgies. Butterflies. Frogs. Hedgehogs. And now, bees.
The launch of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2026–2030 this summer gave us the reason to look back at those four years and tell this story.
Its ambition of creating more connected pockets of nature across Ireland is a reminder that supporting biodiversity doesn’t always have to begin with something enormous.
Sometimes it starts with noticing what’s missing. Sometimes it starts by doing a little less. Sometimes it starts with a patch of grass you’re prepared not to cut. And sometimes, apparently, it ends with one of your directors lying completely still in that grass while thousands of bees settle into their new home overhead.
Who knew it would all start with the midgies?
🐝 Did you know?
The Round Tower Project isn’t about producing honey.
Its aim is to support wild colonies that can live with minimal intervention and potentially develop natural resilience to pests and diseases. The colonies will be monitored for occupancy, survival, disease and, where feasible, their genetic characteristics.
Ultimately, OpenHive hopes the network can help protect the genetic heritage of Ireland’s native dark honey bee, Apis mellifera mellifera.