Humans can study from the cooperative system of bees

“Even though the hive is structured as a monarchy, its foundations are provided by a cooperative system”. Photographer Maurizio Annese visits Cascina Linterno, Milan, to discover the dynamics amongst bees

Even although the hive is dominated as a strict monarchy, its survival is dependent upon the collective work of 1000’s of people. Bees have at all times fascinated people as a result of they embody paradoxes: a society that seems hierarchical and inflexible, but is based totally on cooperation, interdependence, and fixed adaptation. At Cascina Linterno in Milan, this paradox turns into tangible. In the restored rural complicated on the sting of Parco delle Cave, centuries of agricultural custom intersect with modern practices of city ecology, schooling, and beekeeping. It is right here that photographer Maurizio Annese set his lens, not solely to doc bees at work however to discover what their social construction reveals about our personal.

Cascina Linterno: a rural stronghold in Milan’s city cloth

Cascina Linterno is without doubt one of the final surviving examples of the standard cascina that when surrounded Milan. These rural farmsteads offered meals and labor to town for hundreds of years, connecting city life to agricultural rhythms. Today, whereas many cascina have disappeared or been transformed into business venues, Linterno maintains a cultural mission: to protect reminiscence whereas embracing sustainability. Managed by the Associazione Amici Cascina Linterno¹, the positioning has turn into a hub for environmental schooling, city farming, and biodiversity initiatives.

The beehives hosted listed below are greater than an agricultural instrument. They are symbols of resilience within the face of city sprawl, air pollution, and ecological disruption. By observing bees on this setting, guests are reminded that even inside metropolitan landscapes, fragile ecosystems can survive — offered people act as custodians slightly than exploiters. The Cascina organizes workshops and guided excursions the place youngsters and adults study pollination, the seasonal cycles of bees, and their important position in meals production².

Bees: a strict monarchy that depends on cooperation

When we describe the hive as a monarchy, we check with the presence of a queen — the one fertile feminine, whose major position is reproduction³. Yet the queen doesn’t govern as a sovereign ruler. She relies upon totally on employee bees for survival: they feed her, clear her, and regulate the temperature of the brood chamber⁴.

The actual functioning of the hive lies within the cooperative efforts of the employees. Thousands of sterile females perform duties that shift with age: younger bees nurse larvae, later they construct combs and retailer nectar, then they guard the doorway, and eventually, they forage outside⁵. This rotation of duties ensures stability and effectivity. Drones, the male bees, exist for copy solely and are expelled from the hive when winter approaches⁶.

The obvious strictness of the monarchy hides a sophisticated type of collective intelligence. Decisions resembling swarming — when a colony splits and a part of it migrates to determine a brand new hive — emerge from a strategy of debate and consensus amongst scout bees. Researchers have proven that these scouts carry out dances to speak potential websites and that the group chooses collectively, with a system resembling democratic voting⁷.

Learning from the cooperative system of bees

Humans usually have a look at bees as metaphors for arduous work and productiveness. But their cooperative system gives deeper classes. Unlike human societies pushed by particular person ambition or revenue, bees embody an economic system of survival. No bee accumulates wealth, standing, or private energy. Each motion is calibrated to learn the hive as a complete. The well being of the colony is dependent upon the stability of roles, the distribution of labor, and the capability to answer change⁸.

At Cascina Linterno, this lesson resonates strongly. Urban communities usually battle with fragmentation, individualism, and competitors for assets. The hive demonstrates that survival shouldn’t be about domination however about coordination. Cooperation shouldn’t be an ethical selection however a useful necessity. If one group of bees fails in its job — for instance, if foragers can not return attributable to pesticides or habitat loss — all the colony collapses⁹.

In ecological phrases, the hive mirrors the interdependence of species inside an ecosystem. Pollination connects bees to flowers, crops to animals, and in the end to people who rely on fruits, greens, and seeds¹⁰. The cooperative system of bees shouldn’t be restricted to their hive; it extends to the setting they inhabit. Every act of pollination creates continuity within the meals net.

Photography as an act of translation

Maurizio Annese approached this topic by looking for to seize the bees’ viewpoint. Wide lenses distort perspective, permitting the viewer to sense immersion inside the swarm, as if the digital camera had been one other insect transferring by way of the hive’s world. Bees flew throughout the body, typically touchdown on the photographer’s arms or lens, collapsing the space between observer and noticed.

This visible technique mirrors the cooperative logic of the hive. Just as no bee exists in isolation, no picture exists indifferent from context. The images doc not solely the bugs however the broader setting: the cascina’s structure, the fields past, the clothes styled by Umberto, which referenced apicultural headgear and protecting clothes. The interaction between trend, setting, and biology highlights the porous boundaries between disciplines.

Urban beekeeping as cultural apply

The reintroduction of bees in city contexts like Milan shouldn’t be merely about honey manufacturing. It is about reestablishing a dialogue between people and nature inside environments the place such connections are sometimes severed. Beekeeping at Cascina Linterno hyperlinks previous and current: medieval farmers as soon as relied on beeswax for candles and honey as one of many few obtainable sweeteners¹¹; right this moment, beekeeping speaks to sustainability, biodiversity, and ecological consciousness.

Urban beekeeping additionally challenges assumptions about the place nature belongs. Bees can thrive in cities, usually extra simply than in pesticide-heavy farmlands, as a result of city biodiversity gives quite a lot of flowers throughout seasons¹². Milan’s parks, gardens, and balconies turn into surprising allies in sustaining hives. In this sense, the cooperative system of bees extends to people who domesticate crops, whether or not deliberately or not. Every balcony flower field contributes to the survival of pollinators.

What bees reveal about human society

The hive raises uncomfortable questions on human programs of governance and economic system. We usually equate monarchy with tyranny and inefficiency, but bees reveal that hierarchy can coexist with collective intelligence and cooperation. The queen symbolizes continuity, not absolute energy. Authority, on this case, is useful slightly than oppressive.

At the identical time, bees remind us of the fragility of collective programs. Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon the place hives all of a sudden die, is linked to a number of stressors: pesticides, parasites just like the Varroa mite, lack of habitat, and local weather change¹³. These crises are human-made, and so they reveal how dependent even essentially the most resilient cooperative programs are on environmental circumstances.

The cooperative system as a paradigm for sustainability

Cascina Linterno, with its bees and its fields, turns into a metaphorical classroom. Observing the hive permits us to rethink sustainability not as a slogan however as a structural precept. Cooperation amongst people, and between people and non-human species, shouldn’t be an idealistic imaginative and prescient however a survival technique. Bees supply a mannequin of useful resource distribution the place nothing is wasted: nectar is reworked into honey, wax into combs, propolis into safety. Waste doesn’t exist, as a result of each substance finds a objective inside the system¹⁴.

This logic might encourage human economies that scale back extraction and waste, transferring towards round programs the place assets are shared and repurposed. The hive demonstrates that prosperity is collective or under no circumstances.

Credits

Photography: Maurizio Annese
Styling: Umberto Sannino
Hair: Alessia Bonotto
Makeup: Angela Montorfano
Casting: Irene Manicone
Male mannequin Marvin
Female mannequin Margot
Photo assistant: Andrea Biancofiore
First stylist assistant: Giulia Frogioni
Second stylist assistant: Alessandra Bernasconi
Production: Ksenya Ohorodnik
Beekeeper: Mauro Veca