Bee Brick

There are over 250 species of bees in the UK, 90% of which are solitary. In recent decades, the solitary bee population has declined rapidly, in part due to habitat loss from the construction industry and urbanisation. Biodiversity loss is a key issue worldwide. Bees play a critical role in this crisis as they are the main pollinators in most ecosystems.

This research project aimed to design sustainable habitats for bees to promote biodiversity within sub/urban communities. Prior to the creation of Bee Brick, existing bee nesting products tended to be led by aesthetics rather than ecologically determined considerations, and their use was often ornamental rather than integral. Bee Brick is a novel product that takes mainstream construction materials as starting points and creates habitats for bees displaced by the construction process. The project team aimed to leverage the construction industry as the potential key to safeguarding and enriching biodiversity on a scale that would result in real change.

The project team collaborated with bioscientists from the University of Exeter and Plymouth University to design the Bee Brick. In researching the product, consideration was paid to structural requirements and constraints (size, shape, material, cost) as well as biological elements (what material and cavities bees require and prefer). Designed to provide a nesting site to support the declining solitary bee population, Bee Brick was first released as a product in 2014. 

Cast concrete was chosen as the preferred material since it can be easily moulded, enabling complex shapes to be made using hard-wearing rubber tooling material. Various material combinations (including china clay, ground granulated blast-furnace slag and fly ash) were tested in Plymouth University's heavy structures lab, using compression testing and thermal testing on the mix design to establish its suitability as a cast construction material. This testing determined that 75% of each brick could be comprised of granite waste material from Cornwall's china clay industry, with 25% granite aggregate and cementitious material to act as a binding agent.

Further research was required to determine that each Bee Brick should contain 18 cavities of 80mm to strike a balance between structural integrity, appearance and plentiful habitat.