BEE BEE QUEUE

THE PATH IS ABUZZ.

Bee Bee Queue is an illuminated garden path featuring dozens of brightly buzzing bumblebees, inviting the viewer to check out some of our fine friends’ favourite foods. This year, artist Trew Facks lays out a gently illuminated garden path consisting of luminescent, chest-high, softball-sized bees, serenely guiding the viewer to come along and share a sip of nectar from a large, illuminated clover pulsating gently with a purple, flame-like glow that has drawn them to the area.

Bees are an essential part of your backyard garden; without them, your apples wouldn’t fruit and your tomatoes wouldn’t… uh… also fruit. Did you know? As much as one-third of all food that humans consume, from fruit and veggies to coffee and chocolate, is directly pollinated by our busy little bee neighbours. Seeing as bees are so helpful in backyard gardens, why not entice them into your front yard with an equally appetizing garden?

Instead of planting a boring grass lawn, consider a tasty clover patch. You don’t have to mow it more than once or twice a season; it takes far less water, requires no pesticides (WILDLIFE WIN!) or fertilizer, and it actively fertilizes the soil with its deep nitrogen-fixing roots! Best of all? Bees love it!

Bee Bee Queue is 3D-printed from biodegradable corn-based PLA, sourced locally from Canadian Filaments. The Bees are internally lit with low-voltage LEDs and individually powered by solar panels. This installation has been placed along both sides of the path to draw the viewer’s eye, and lead their feet to the focal point—a giant clover flower. The clover features animated dancing light patterns powered by an Arduino microcontroller and addressable WS2812B lights.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

TREW FACKS.

Trew Facks is a local character and purveyor of whimsical Edmonton-themed creations. For last year’s Zoominescence, Trew created Leapfrog, a human-sized Leopard Frog. In 2023, Trew and GABS teamed up to create a life-sized Fibre-optic Porcupine Lantern, which rode across the city in a bicycle trailer and caught a lift downtown on ETS On-Demand Transit on its way to the zoo. How will Bee Bee Queue arrive at the zoo? Only Trew knows!

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