Decolonizing the Hive: Native Bee Stewardship Network

Decolonizing the Hive: Native Bee Stewardship Network builds upon Chávez’s relationships with bees and North St. Louis’s histories by expanding prevailing assumptions of conservation. At his Northside Workshop, a chemical-free native plant garden invites native bees to thrive on their own terms. Sculptural interventions made from disassembled honeybee hives provide ample places for native bees to burrow while a variety of pollinator habitats provide different types of native bees the opportunity to feast. Walking paths and sitting areas create spaces for people to be with bees and reorient their relationship to fear. By materializing the presence of bees, the project invites visitors and participants to reexamine their assumptions about vacancy while highlighting the mechanisms of dispossession and intentional property blighting at work throughout the city.