{"id":70362,"date":"2017-04-25T14:58:58","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T12:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/2017\/04\/25\/plan-voor-bijenpaleis-op-de-campus\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T10:32:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T09:32:42","slug":"plan-voor-bijenpaleis-op-de-campus-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2017\/04\/25\/plan-voor-bijenpaleis-op-de-campus-2\/","title":{"rendered":"First drawings of a future bees\u2019 palace on campus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Een impressie van het insectenhotel, dat in het gebouwtje komt te staan naast de bijenkasten.<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>

If it were down to the Erasmus Sustainability Hub, a \u2018bees\u2019 palace\u2019 would be opened next to the tennis courts in Park Noord this summer. The design sketches are ready, but the Executive Board still has to approve them.<\/p>\n

The \u2018bees\u2019 palace\u2019 is a small, open building measuring five by seven metres, which will accommodate a few beehives, an insect hotel and a work place. The plan is to site the building between the tennis courts and the campus\u2019 northern exit on the Kralingse Zoom, opposite the G building.<\/p>\n

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De ontwerptekening van het bijenpaleis, met rechts het insectenhotel en erachter de bijenkasten.<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>

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Before the bees are allowed to come, the Executive Board wants to know whether there is enough support on the campus for a bee hotel. During the Erasmus Bee Week<\/em>, at the beginning of April, the Hub tried to increase the level of support. Dressed up in bee costumes, volunteers rode delivery bicycles through the campus encouraging people to vote for the bee hotel.<\/p>\n

The aim was to secure a thousand votes, ultimately the figure was about six hundred. \u201cConsequently, even though the week is over, we\u2019re carrying the promotion on, during breaks, for example,\u201d said Nada van Schouwenburg from the Sustainability Hub immediately after the Bee Week.<\/p>\n

Fifty-fifty<\/h3>

Thanks to the extra activities, the number of votes is currently well above a thousand, added Jon de Ruijter, also from the Hub. Now, it\u2019s up to the Executive Board to make a decision. What\u2019s important is that the bee building is ready by the middle of July, emphasised De Ruijter. \u201cIf not, there\u2019s no point and we\u2019ll have to delay it all another year. This is due to the bees\u2019 mating time.\u201d De Ruijter thinks there\u2019s a \u2018fifty-fifty\u2019 chance that the palace will be ready this summer.<\/p>\n

There are various plans for the funding of the luxury bee accommodation. \u201cIt\u2019s possible that part of it will be paid for out of the Park Noord project. It\u2019s also possible that we raise some money through crowdfunding. Or that people can buy shares in the bees\u2019 palace, and have their dividends paid out in the form of \u2018campus honey\u2019,\u201d De Ruijter said, pondering the possibilities. \u201cOne way or the other, we\u2019ll manage it,\u201d he resolved optimistically.<\/p>\n

Organic beekeeping <\/h3>

The proposed beekeeper of the bees\u2019 palace, or the \u2018Bee Building\u2019 as she refers to it, is Babs Verploegh, a member of Rotterdam School of Management\u2019s staff and the person who originally came up with the plan to keep bees. She wants to do this in an organic way, which means that the bees have to be left alone as much as possible. Consequently, very little honey will be collected.<\/p>\n

The first step is to catch a swarm of bees, and that has to be done by the middle of June at the latest, otherwise it will be very unlikely for it to happen this year. And there must be a specific building for them because, subsequently, you can\u2019t just move the bees again, added Verploegh. \u201cIf you move bees fifty metres, they\u2019ll simply fly back to where they came from. The only way to move them again is to move them to a place which is at least six kilometres away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verploegh described the way she wants to keep the bees: \u201cI want the bees to be bees. Who knows, it may encourage students to take an interest in bees but, in the first instance, it\u2019s about the wellbeing of the bees themselves. Although I do hope other people play a part. Maybe there\u2019s someone who\u2019d like to become a beekeeper.\u201d The members of Passing Shot tennis club don\u2019t have to worry about being stung according to Verploegh. \u201cBees do absolutely nothing. You only run the chance of being stung if you open a hive. In my kitchen garden, there\u2019s a hive about two metres away and nothing has ever happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

More about the Sustainability Hub<\/h2>