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Dewar
3B Printing
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3B Printing
No that’s not a typo in the headline it is a reference to an experiment by Whiskey brand Dewar’s for the launch of their new Highlander Honey whiskey.
Creative agencies Sid Lee and The Ebeling Group developed a campaign alongside master beekeeper Robin Theron to 'print' sculptures produced using 80,000 bees.
The results are pretty impressive, though if we’re going to be really picky about this, the process of putting bees inside a mould to create honeycomb technically more like injection moulding but I suppose their isn’t really a bee based pun for that manufacturing process… hang on… insection moulding? In fairness the mould that helps the bees build the beeswax structure was actually 3D printed.
The process, which took about six weeks to complete, is inverted from bees traditional honeycombing process and the clear casing mould was made so the bees felt like they were inside a traditional hive.
In an interview with Rae Ann Fera of Co.Create The Ebeling Group Producer Martha Smith stated “The one thing we didn’t account for was that bees don’t follow timelines. It took them longer than we anticipated to build that much comb. And we needed more bees,” says Smith. “We added more and more until the got really efficient at building the comb, because these sculptures were larger than your average hive. So what was expected of them required more time and more of them.”
The resulting two structures, a bottle and a bust of the creator of Dewar, John Dewar are a sight to beehold (sorry couldn’t resist).
