Where heritage craft meets modern art as a launchpad for new conversations around the importance of creating habitats for bees, pollinators and all wildlife.
What is a skep?
A skep is a basket. A bee skep is a basket for bees – so a traditional form of beehive. They are typically made from wicker or straw, woven and coiled tightly into a bell-shaped or flat-topped structure. Because of the nature of their fabric, they require a structure to protect them from the elements.
These structures are known as bee boles, bee alcoves, bee houses and bee shelters – such as the fine example, pictured below at the National Trust’s Attingham Park, Shropshire. Attingham’s Georgian Bee House is a rare survival and is Grade II Listed, probably built in the early 1800s.
So why don’t we use skeps anymore?
After WWI, a government restocking scheme granted subsidies for bees in boxes, not skeps, so skeps were replaced with the more weather-proof wooden hives that are familiar today.
As a result, the craft of skep making has become an endangered heritage craft and the many bee boles, bee alcoves, bee houses and bee shelters around the country have become redundant, many falling into disrepair or even being destroyed. Those remaining sit empty, their role in history increasingly forgotten.
The Bee Friendly Skep Project aims to bring bee boles, bee alcoves, bee houses and bee shelters, once valued spaces, to life, using them as launchpads to start fresh conversations around the importance of bees and all pollinators, and the need to create spaces to protect and nurture them.
Taking the form of a travelling exhibition, painted skeps celebrate pollinators and bee shelters, and draw attention to the endangered heritage craft of skep making, showcasing all as storytellers of the nation’s history.
Each skep is handmade from terracotta so that they can be placed outside and used as bug hotels after the exhibition is over.
(Fabio, pictured above, of Puro Ceramics, is the creative talent behind the skeps of The Bee Friendly Skep Project exhibition).
In addition, a programme of in-person events at demonstrate how everyone can get involved in transforming neglected spaces into flourishing and diverse wildlife habitats.
Meet the artists
1. Fabio Bernardi
The mastermind behind Puro Ceramics (and the maker of each of these skeps), Fabio’s ethos is that of simplicity, connection, and sustainability. His work is inspired by nature and the beauty of a simple life. Working from a studio in the creative hub of Frome, Somerset, he celebrates organic shapes, natural imperfections, the tactile nature of materials and unexpected combinations of texture.
2. Maddie Moate
Maddie is a British television presenter, podcaster, YouTuber and children’s author. She is perhaps best known for presenting the CBeebies series Maddie’s Do You Know? For which she was awarded the Best Presenter BAFTA at the Children’s BAFTAs 2017. She is also a beekeeper, sharing her experiences through engaging and educational content on her Instagram feed, which boats 55.7k followers. We are pleased to announce Maddie as a celebrity supporter of The Bee Friendly Skep Project.
3. Alice Baker
We worked with Bristol-based artist Alice to create a bold and colourful mural for Worcestershire Parkway Railway Station. Since then, Alice has transferred her mural painting skills to tattooing, where she specialises in floral and botanical designs.
4. Lucy Caddel
Based in Shrewsbury, Lucy loves to juxtapose the tropical with a quintessential British rural landscape, translating the beauty, hope and joy of the everyday to canvas through gouache and acrylic. Lucy will be painting her skep live at Attingham to share her creative process.
5. Hattie Gordon
Hattie loves colour and uses gouache for its vibrant pigments to paint fun characterful animals, flouncy flowers – and now pollinators. She lives in Brighton and exhibits her paintings and giclée prints in local exhibitions. She is a proud supporter of the Just a Card campaign.
6. Sarah Hoyle
Sarah is an illustrator and animator. We worked with Sarah on a mural at Oxford Railway Station, where her design reminds us that bees are just as present and vital within an urban environment as a rural one.
7. Esther Rushton
Artist and illustrator, Esther largely spent her childhood adventuring amongst the wilds of the Lake District. These memories have influenced her current style – flowing, thought-provoking designs that are a celebration of the natural world. We collaborated with Esther in 2022 on an eye-catching design for our wildflower seed packets – available to buy here, today and online at beefriendlytrust.org
EQUINOX
Following on from the success of our exhibition of painted skeps, we commissioned the last heritage hive and skep maker Tina Cunningham to create a traditional wicker and daub skep hive for our Autumn Equinox event, which will be adorned by creations from the event’s participants (objects, poems, stories, photographs, paintings…) and installed in a nearby railway station.
Bee Friendly Trust
Unit 10, Woodborough Yard,
Woodborough, Nr Pewsey,
Wiltshire, SN9 5PF
emma@beefriendlytrust.org
07971 880695
