Bees Get a Big Tribute at the American Museum of Natural History

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What’s it like to create a giant beehive in a New York City museum? We asked the creator at the American Museum of Natural History.

By Alix Strauss

Photographs by Tony Cenicola

This article is part of our Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on how museums, galleries and auction houses are embracing new artists, new concepts and new traditions.

You could think of them as worker bees.

Early on a Friday morning as daylight streamed through a window overlooking New York City’s Theodore Roosevelt Park, a dozen or so contractors lifted a 500-pound, honey-colored mass of sculpted resin off a rolling cart and suspended it from the ceiling.

It was a first step in what will ultimately be a tribute to the power of the beehive and the creatures that make them.

The project is underway on the first floor of the soon-to-be-completed Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation — the long-awaited extension of the American Museum of Natural History — which is set to open early next year.

The new 5,000-foot gallery where the workers had gathered that morning is the Susan and Peter J. Solomon Family Insectarium, which will connect visitors to the extraordinary variety of the insect world through large-scale models, interactive exhibits — and yes, even live insects.

The mass of resin was just one of six, totaling more than 8,000 pounds and varying in size, with the largest 16 feet by 16 feet. When assembled, the pieces, which the artist referred to as lobes, will form one mammoth abstract beehive purposely affixed to the ceiling, as if hung from a tree branch. Suspended around them will be giant artificial bees — and nearby even real ones.

The installation was conceived by Karen Atta, a sculptor and founder of Atta Studio on West 31st Street in Manhattan that specializes in resin fabrication. Since 2020, she and her team have been crafting, puzzle solving and creating this massive project — or what Ralph Appelbaum calls “the grand story of the exhibit.”

Mr. Appelbaum is the founder of Ralph Appelbaum Associates, a multinational firm focusing on the planning and design of museums, which was hired to help design and execute the museum’s vision.

“The hive will be a visual icon to the street,” he said, referring to the view from Columbus Avenue between 79th and 80th streets. “Typically, a beehive is something you stay away from in nature, which is why we exaggerated the scale.”

The museum has always been an ardent implementer in the education, protection and preservation of endangered insects. To continue to bring awareness to these crucial issues was the hope of everyone involved.

“Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the planet, accounting for 80 percent of animal life on earth,” said Lauri Halderman, vice president for exhibitions at the museum. “They are incredibly important to ecosystems around the world, yet they are at risk as a result of human activities — including human-induced climate change.”

The exhibit, said Mr. Appelbaum, will be a combination of large-scale models that are scientifically based, lab-like experiences, observatory areas, digital interactions, and viewing cases containing 17 different kinds of living insects.

The backbone of the gallery is a trail of 60 football-size bees that start at the Pollination Portal and “fly from one end of the gallery, pollinating a flower and moving to the hive, allowing you to be embraced by the insect architecture,” said Mr. Appelbaum. “The story of pollination and how insects evolve and keep our world going is significant to understand, and is central to the exhibit.”

Ms. Atta agreed. “The fact that this exhibit will educate people and bring awareness to climate change, the planet and our rapidly changing relationship with nature, which is disintegrating, made working on this project more viable and enthralling.”

In an interview she answered questions about the project:

What was your main goal?

It’s remarkable that a beehive is naturally and organically architecturally based. It’s fascinating how bees know to make it in these symmetrical, hexagon shapes that are luminous and beautiful. I wanted to do the same — to make something that works structurally, has the beauty of the object so people are drawn to it while having audiovisual components. I wanted to make it realistic, but also fantastical. It’s the perfect example of an interactive installation.

How is it interactive?

We are making six lobes that have been designed to portray an organic, cascading shape. Each piece is unique and hangs at intervals from the ceiling so that the viewer can walk between them as if they’re a little bee wandering through this massive, immersive hive. There will be touch-screen monitors, auditory buzzing sounds and videos playing of bees.

Making the hive required a team of highly specialized artists. Who contributed to this process?

We’ve had a team of 10 people, all with diverse skills, throughout the fabrication process: sculptors, mold and model makers, a woodworker to make the forms of the resin panels, which were created and designed using big rubber molds, and a colorist and casting specialist.

What were the greatest challenges?

The biggest challenge was dealing with the weight and finding ways to make the lobes lighter. The smallest weighs 500 pounds; the largest is 3,500. We experimented for several months with different materials like fiberglass or something that offered a paper-like consistency, but none of them had the visual impact I was hoping for. We eventually settled on polyurethane resin.

What were your biggest milestones?

The first was deciding on the correct material, resin. The second was the color, honey. The third was making the first complete lobe because through that experience we learned to alter our process and decided to change the structure so the cross-section of the hexagon shapes, or the cells, could be more geometric and consistent. The fourth was refining our new technique to fabricate these large structures, which is basically making flat panels and heat forming it in an oven.

How will you get the lobes to fit inside the museum?

The lobes are larger than any loading area or opening at the museum, so each will have two or three pieces that come apart and will be reconstructed in the galley. The lobes will leave the studio attached sideways to an A-frame, which will be loaded onto a rolling flatbed truck and driven to the museum through the streets of New York. Then each piece will be rolled into the museum, unpacked, hung and reattached once they are secured to the ceiling. It will probably take eight hours to hang the largest lobe.

Is bee extinction something that concerns you?

Bees are an essential element to human life and a barometer for how the world is doing. Through the beauty of these sculptural objects and the interactive components of the exhibit, I’m hoping we can get people to understand the severity of the extinction concern and the importance of pollination, so they will be more open to making changes by their own individual actions.

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