Paper short abstract:

From an anthropological perspective and addressed in a polymorphous way mixing written and audio-visual materials, this survey investigates how the emergence of E.M.Hives in Western countries could enhance the age-old interspecies relationship of humans to honeybees and honeybees to humans.

Paper long abstract:

This research project investigates E.M.Hives: a new trend in beekeeping emerging in beekeepers' backyards in Western countries over the past few years. Broadly speaking, an E.M.Hive is a beehive filled with multiple and various sensors, with the purpose of tracking and recording bee behaviour, ultimately aspiring to help beekeepers develop less intrusive and time-consuming techniques. The recent price drop of certain technologies has enabled companies to offer 'relatively' cheap electronically monitored hives and, incidentally, created an uptrend for DIY ones. Following beekeepers, scientists and E.M.Hive makers in the field and online, the survey - based on a multi-species and multi-sited ethnography - investigates the following: How E.M.Hives could enhance the age-old interspecies relationship of humans to honeybees and honeybees to humans. Indeed, such technologies bring beekeepers closer to their bees by providing constant access to their colonies through the internet of things. Moreover, sensory collected data provides beekeepers, so far, with information out of the human sensory perception about the health and behaviour of colonies. Hypothetically, this data could provide tools to decipher aspects of the honeybee's complex communication system. This research is addressed in a fractured way and follows the principle of 'multivocality' (Pink, 2001), hence, the narrative combines (1) a paper built upon the conducted ethnography, supported by examples derived from Science-Fiction films and literature and (2) audio-visual materials, which offer an experience of enhanced interspecies relationships through new technologies and an immersion within the sensorial 'Umwelt' of bees.