It was a very nice experience of seeing the world in a perspective of another species and trying to understand the world situation in the bees' view. The whole project helped me to experience our complex ecosystem and to rethink the importance of every species.

About the bee

The bee, and pollinators in general, are very underrated and I realised during the whole project that they are not really included. I felt that often the bee was not considered as an interaction partner, as many blooming plants did not list me as an interaction neither. This was quite eye opening that the information we humans receive from a food perspective does not necessarily include the importance of pollinators.

Additionally, for the bee landscaping is very important. As we did not really have a role for this it was a bit hard to know if the farmer or carpenter will both consider the aspect of landscaping. In a next iteration of the role play, I would assign this task specifically to a role.

I also had a short but very interesting conversation with a friend when I told her about our project. She brought up to my attention that in canton Zug, there is a risk of too many bees on too little land, and that the bees start fighting for the pollen. This would be something to further research, and to include as a risk of too little space and plants which leads to different bee types who fight for their individual survival.

About the project

In general, the directions of the interactions in our role play were wrong from the bee’s perspective. That the bee interacts with the farmer makes sense from the landscaping and use of toxins perspective. Otherwise, the chef should ask about the honey and then tell the carpenter what is needed to build the bee house. This is because they want something from the bee and not the other way around. The alignment between social and natural roles was very difficult, in general. During the project the focus was always on the natural roles to provide something to humans. As the bee, I do not really care about the humans. The humans need to care about me if they want honey and survive in the ecosystem. This is something I will take on in my future work and try to remember that natural species do not exist to only provide something for humans. We are all part of this ecosystem of coexistence.

A next iteration could also have only natural roles and roles who focus on human use of landscape, energy, water, soil, and air quality.