The Good of the Hive® was founded by artist Matthew Willey on a personal commitment to hand-paint 50,000 honey bees – the number necessary for a healthy, thriving hive – in murals around the world. Through art and imagination, The Good of the Hive inspires curiosity and awareness about the importance of honey bees and other pollinators while celebrating the power in human connection.
Honey bees within the hive ‘think’ collectively. They are hard-wired to understand that their immune system is collective. Their health is based on the health of the hive, not the individual bee. After a personal experience with a honey bee in 2008, the artist realized that human health is the same way, although we rarely act like it. Through the simple act of painting a symbolic healthy hive of 50,000, one bee at a time, we intend to inspire an unstoppable movement of necessary change toward balance between humans and the natural world.
We are all one hive.

The Good of the Hive Website

I visited two of the honey bee murals painted by artist Matthew Willey which are located in Peterborough, NH. I was impressed by the level of detail and he inclusion of painted shadows.

Another mural is located in a healing garden at the Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, NH.