If bees disappeared tomorrow, our plates would look startlingly bare. Roughly a third of the food we eat depends on pollination, yet habitat loss and climate change continue to erode bee populations at an alarming rate. Nothing we don’t know but to read it is one, it’s another to feel it. At Babylonstoren’s newly unveiled Byzantium, that reality lands and stays long after you leave.
Set just behind the Moestuin, the Byzantium is not announced so much as discovered. You step inside and the temperature shifts, the light turns honeyed, and the world slows to the tempo of the hive. ‘More than an exhibit, this is a space for learning about and connecting with the smallest yet most powerful workers on earth,’ says Arné Stander, Babylonstoren’s resident beekeeper and entomologist, as we stand watching bees move in mesmerizing formation behind glass.
Originally conceived by Babylonstoren’s sister estate, The Newt in Somerset, and first shown at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the installation has been permanently rehomed to Babylonstoren. The name itself is a clue: ‘by’ means bee in Afrikaans, but Byzantium also suggests devotion- a fitting description for what unfolds inside.
Golden honeycomb structures, peepholes and displays that explain how a hive operates as a single superorganism. I find myself crouching, opening panels, leaning in. It’s quietly addictive. ‘Each bee has a role- engineer, nurse, cleaner, forager, undertaker,’ Stander explains. ‘Bees remind us that cooperation, not competition, sustains life. Together, they create something extraordinary.’
The emotional core of the experience lies in the observation hives. Bees stream past in real time, carrying pollen, feeding larvae, building wax cells with astonishing precision. ‘These hives are the real gems,’ says Elsa Vogts, Babylonstoren’s museologist. ‘To see a colony functioning together, brings everything into focus. It’s magical.’
Audio guides deepen the experience, revealing how bees communicate, regulate temperature and maintain balance- lessons that feel uncomfortably relevant to our own fractured systems. The message is never heavy-handed, but it is clear: our wellbeing is bound to theirs.
For those who want to go further, Stander leads intimate beekeeping workshops, complete with protective suits and hands-on hive encounters. ‘Once you’ve stood inside a working hive,’ he says, ‘you never see bees the same way again.’
Outside, the gardens hum as usual, but I leave altered- newly attentive to every blossom, every flicker of movement. The Byzantium is a celebration, yes, but also a quiet call to awareness. At Babylonstoren, balance isn’t an abstract idea. It’s alive, winged, and working tirelessly- often unseen, to keep the whole system in bloom.
Visit the Byzantium
Open daily from 09h00–16h00.
Located behind the Moestuin at Babylonstoren Garden.
Entry is included in the annual Babylonstoren Garden Membership, available from the Babylonstoren Ticket Office. Beekeeping workshops by reservation only.
For bookings and enquiries, contact [email protected] or visit www.babylonstoren.com.
Credits
Text by Heidi Bertish
Images: Supplied
