For companies · Team building

Team building on real hives

The team puts on beekeeping suits and walks up to live colonies in the Honey Garden. They lift, pass and return the frames themselves, with a beekeeper standing there telling them what is on the frame.

Dom kulture Silosi, the Danube bank45 bee colonies in the gardenLed by Dario and David

Send an enquiry Compare with „Learning from bees”

A team in beekeeping suits working on hives in the garden

01What the team does with its hands

The suit goes on, the smoker is lit

The gear comes first. The suit zips up to the throat, the gloves go over the sleeves, and until that is done nobody goes near a hive.

Then the roof comes off. A frame full of bees weighs more than people expect and it is passed from hand to hand slowly, because the bees feel a sudden movement before you do.

The beekeeper is there the whole time, reading the frame out loud: brood, honey, the queen if she turns up.

Dario explaining to a team how a hive is opened

02How the day goes

All of it happens in the garden, none of it in a hall

The order is always this one. We agree the length in advance, according to how many of you are coming and how much time you have that day.

Arrival and the briefing
Everyone gathers in the garden, no slides. We go through what you may do, what you may not, and why nobody waves their arms near a hive.
The gear
Everyone gets a suit and checks the zips on the person next to them. The first shared task is that nobody walks in among the hives badly fastened.
Opening the hive
The smoker, then the roof, then the first frame. The team arranges itself around the hive, and you can already see who steps up and who waits a pace behind.
Working the frames
The frames come out and go back in order. The task is that the hive ends up put together exactly as it was found.
Closing up, and the conversation
The hive is closed, the suits come off, everyone sits down and talks about what just happened inside the group.
Time in the garden
Shade, the pallet amphitheatre and BeeFe, our own bar in the garden.

Because one bee cannot do what a hive can.

BeeCenter

03Why a hive

A team’s habits show above an open hive

In a colony of a few tens of thousands of bees, nobody issues orders. The work is divided by who is where and what they found, and information travels by dance and by scent.

The same shows around an open hive: who takes the frame, who steps back, who explains while nobody listens. Bees draw no distinction between a director and an intern.

So once the hive is closed, the conversation turns to the team, and the bees stay as the example.

Dario in a beekeeping suit beside the hives in the garden

04The difference between the two programmes

Here you work, at „Learning from bees” you learn

Team building is a physical day: the suit, the smoker, an open hive, frames in your hands. „Learning from bees” is Bee a Team, business training at a table, where the hive asks the questions and the people from the company answer them.

Team buildingSuits, smoker and frames. The hands work, the talking comes afterwards.
Learning from beesA table, questions and discussion. The hive is the example, the team gives the answers.
Shared by bothThe same garden, the same hives, the same beekeepers.
If you want bothWrite that in the enquiry and we will agree the order.

See „Learning from bees”

05Where this goes next