UrbanBEE South Africa: Bees are slowly taking up residence!

Hello UrbanBEE community,

On the 1st of October 2025, the citizen science component of UrbanBEE South Africa officially launched and we have already completed Week 1 of data collection!

See the maps attached to see how bee hotels across the cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town are slowly becoming populated with solitary bees. While Cape Town does appear to have slow occupancy rates, Johannesburg is already seeing numerous hotels with one, or even multiple, little residents.

But fret not if your bee hotel remains empty - it takes a little bit of time and hopefully in the next few weeks we will continue seeing more bee hotels welcome residents!

This is just the start and shows promise for an exciting couple weeks ahead - happy bee keeping!