This recycled concrete brick features small cavities, creating a safe nesting site for solitary bees

The Bee Brick Bee Home is a concrete brick with built-in cavities that provide safe nesting sites for solitary bees in your garden or community park.

There’s nothing more complicated than our relationship with bees. We admire them from afar and certainly can indulge in the fruit of their labor, but all bets are off once they get too close. Once they decide that your home’s shingles provide the perfect conditions to build a nest, let terror reign.

Designer: Green&Blue

For all that they might provoke, our fear can be misguided and even unwarranted. Bees are some of the most important and hardworking caretakers of our planet’s ecosystems. Solitary bees, in particular, are known for being non-aggressive as they have no hive or queen to protect, so they won’t sting potential threats.

Creating a means for solitary bees to have a nesting site and to help our declining bee population, Green&Blue designed the Bee Brick Bee House, a concrete brick, made from 75% recycled material, with built-in cavities for red mason and leafcutter bees to have a safe nesting site.

The Cornwall-based design studio, Green&Blue devotes the bulk of its designs to wildlife and nature initiatives–the Bee Brick Bee House is no different. Designed for gardeners, and wildlife enthusiasts alike, the Bee Brick Bee House can be integrated into any garden, brick shelter, or outdoor space where bees frequent. In fact, a new planning requirement in Brighton and Hove calls for all new buildings that rise above five meters to integrate bee bricks into their build, as well as bird nesting boxes suitable for swifts.

Since the Bee Brick Bee House is a functional, concrete brick, it can be integrated into any brick structure the same way a traditional brick is used for building. The brick’s cavities provide a safe space for solitary bees to nest and populate. Speaking to this, Green&Blue designers suggest, “Bee houses can be a simple way to do something to help our declining bee population, alongside bee-friendly planting and other wildlife-friendly measures.”