Yesterday we went to see the most recent attraction at Kew Gardens – the Hive. The Hive is a 17m high latticework of aluminium pieces which represents the structure of a bee hive. It was designed by a British artist called Wolfgang Buttress, for the UK pavilion at the Milan 2015 Expo and has now been brought back to London.  It’s fascinating from the outside, but even more so from the inside. There you are surrounded by the constant hum of a beehive, supplemented by some human voices and instrumentation which has been created by members of the psychedelic band Spiritualized. In fact there is even an album soundtrack. The Guardian reviewed it in the summer. Apparently bees hum in the key of C.

The other intriguing thing is to watch the LED lights coming on in waves around the structure. These reflect the vibrations emanating from a real beehive in another part of the gardens. The lights aren’t too visible from the outside in the daylight, but we managed to pick a time when it was pretty gloomy – in fact it started to rain quite heavily – so they became quite distinct.

A few photos below.

A few raindrops on the next one, which is taken from the upper level, where it is open to the skies.

Whether the man in black was overwhelmed by it all, or just wanted to get a good photo, who knows!