The “Spirit of the Hive” refers to the community spirit controlling the overall behavior of the beehive. This term was coined by Maurice Maeterlinck in The Life of the Bee, published in 1901.
In this installation, 4,000 tiny, two-dimensional bees filled the gallery space. These bees were photographically reproduced in the black and white darkroom as contact prints from 35 mm film, hand-colored, and cut out individually. The bees were displayed on pins, making them reminiscent of an entomological collection. The queen bee was on display at the center of the installation. Just as the queen bee in a hive is responsible for laying all of the eggs, all of the bees in this installation were created from photographs of the queen bee.