Beegin: Fabricating more accessible beekeeping systems for farmers, beekeepers, and bees

Abstract

In 2019, the World Bank declared South Africa the most economically unequal society in the world. Within this context, Beegin is designed to provide a tool for financial empowerment, essential for undoing existing racial inequities, while simultaneously nurturing a healthy local ecology. Beegin’s design research methodologies were borrowed from Timothy Prestero’s design for outcomes, which is a participatory methodology that focuses on manufacturability, distribution, and actual use to help to ensure a product’s delivery and uptake. Beegin hives can be manufactured without in-depth technical training thanks to proprietary vacuum-formed molds and simple instruction manuals. Beegin provides a better hive for bees, which in turn aids the farmers, who rely on their pollination activities, and introduces new economic opportunities for the entrepreneurs who manufacture and sell their own Beegin hives.