Here is a view of the bee hive up on the roof of the SIS building! There are no bees inside yet – I’m just testing out our structural stability and getting everything ready. I keep hunting for old bricks, straps, and concrete blocks when I bike around town so that I can use them. All of the structure below the hives is salvaged.

This is the solar array of photovoltaic panels (PV) on the other side of the bee wall. Impressive, right? It’s powering a 70,00 square foot building, generating 33,000 kWh of energy!

And this is the landscape below the building, or at least a small part of it. Note, it’s a rain garden. (this is awesome because rain gardens are good for retaining water on-site instead of having it flood the streets end up polluted and in our sewer system). The bees pollinate in concentric circles, with around a 5 mile radius of the hive (this is just plain awesome). The American University campus is an arboretum, and there are also tons of blossoming flowers around, as well as Rock Creek Park, all within a one-mile radius. So the scout bees’ hardest job will probably be deciding where to do their work amongst all the good possibilities.
There you have it. The lay of the land. Now all we need are our pollinator friends to arrive. Send them your positive vibrations, they are en route via the US Postal Service, coming up from Georgia!

Special thanks to Greg, who took these pics with his smart phone.