First ever in the world! I will introduce the art museum “Bee Heaven” of honeycomb arts which created by a man fascinated by bees! Bees are not bad guys! They are good model of companies!

There is an art museum called “Bee Heaven” which honeycombs of hornet are displayed in Tomi City, Nagano Prefecture. More than 1600 of unique masterpiece of honeycomb arts are displayed. Yoshikuni Shiozawa who is a director of “Bee Heaven” respects bees a lot because he believes “Hardworking bees achieve great job with small bodies. This is good example of companies!” It opened in 1995. Mr. Shiozawa founded a liquid concrete company in the local Tomi City and built up a group company with 10 billion yen of annual turnover by himself. The purpose of opening “Bee Heaven” is to change bad image of hornets and to show artwork created by hornets.

Hornets are beneficial insects eats stink bugs and scarab beetles that are harmful insects for farmers. The life of hornets is short as one month, and they work even if it rains or winds. Even after their honeycombs grow big, they never change their industriousness and work as hard as possible. Doing a great job with a small body is a model of a company. This is Mr. Shiozawa’s management philosophy.

A huge bee monument will welcome you in “Bee Heaven”.

There are more than 1600 pieces of honeycomb arts created by hornets such as beckoning cats with honeycomb, electric fan with honeycomb and astronomical telescope with honeycomb are exhibited in the hall. The hall filled with masterpieces of honeycomb arts is overwhelming. From August to October, you can see hornets’ nest-building through the window of the building.

The huge honeycomb art “Japan’s No.1 Mt. Fuji” which height is 3776m and has been created by 160 of honeycombs combined together, is also registered in the Guinness World Records. It was completed by 160 thousands of bees.

How to create a huge honeycomb is to arrange number of honeycombs removed by extermination work and make hornets fill the gaps of each honeycombs. You can see the story of this art creation by the video in the museum.

Access to Bee Heaven

From Tokyo

It takes about 1 hour from JR Tokyo Station to JR Karuizawa Station by Hokuriku Shinkansen. Transfer to the Shinano Railway Line at JR Karuizawa Station and it takes about 30 minutes to Shinano Railway Shigeno Station.

From Osaka

It takes about 50 minutes by Tokaido Shinkansen from JR Shin-Osaka Station to JR Nagoya Station. At JR Nagoya Station, transfer to the JR Chuo Main Line (limited express) to JR Shinonoi Station in about 3 hour). Transfer to the Shinano Railway Line at JR Shinonoi Station to Shinano Railway Shigeno Station in about 45 minutes

It takes about 5 minutes by taxi from Shigeno Station to Bee Heaven.