At Pollenize, we’re always keen to call upon the local community within Plymouth to amplify our important mission of pollinator conservation. Over the years, a wide range of inspiring creatives have helped to transform the beehives dotted around the city into spectacular colourful homes for our bees. 

Last year, in proud partnership with Marjon University,  we expanded the Plymouth apiary network to include a new site within their campus allotment, which sits just adjacent to the student village. This was all part of our united efforts to conserve and extend local populations of the native dark honey bee.  Recently, Marjon Arts Centre put out an open call seeking local artists who would be interested in a commissioned project to design and paint a Pollenize beehive!

Several applications were considered but there was one proposal from Artist William Luz which secured him the role of our beehive artist. William has created work for Aesop, The Barbican, Nike, and Facebook. He has exhibited in shows internationally and is one-third of Nous Vous, a collective of artists who have been working together since 2007.  If you are local to Plymouth you may already be familiar with his magnificent creations,  one of which is the enormous wall mural that can be seen as you walk up Union St, designed and installed by Will in collaboration with Stephen Smith of Neasden Control Centre, and commissioned by Nudge Community Builders.

We visited Will in the allotment as he worked his magic on the hive. Now completed, it is now inhabited by its own colony of honey bees.

Let's introduce you to the artist…

Marjon University is rolling out lots of amazing sustainability initiatives to become a zero-carbon campus by 2030. Thousands of our native honeybees have now moved into their snazzy new hive.

Collaborative projects like this not only help to showcase the work of amazing artists like yourself, but it also helps to spread our important messages about pollinator conservation.  Do you enjoy contributing to sustainable initiatives in the community? 

For sure, this kind of ethos is definitely very visible and seems to be prevalent down here and it feels very good to be around that and be part of it. It’s an inspiration to think we can all do little bits to make things less bad and hopefully avoid some sort of complete climate breakdown.