Immeke is an initiative that promotes the survival of the honeybee. Immeke develops projects, educates about bees and flowers, gives bee-keeping courses and 'sweet-talks' with inspiration from within the beeing of the bee.

Immeke consists of beekeepers Rinske Kreukniet and Angelique de Meijer. Immeke was founded in 2012 (the Year of the bee) Together they form Immeke.

 

Honeybees and people have been interconnected and interdependent for centuries. More then ever bees show us that they are more then just makers of honey.

Bees have an indicator function. If we fail to look after our environment we fail to look after the bees. Bees are an example how to treat our own environment and even how to treat each other. We can learn a lot from bees.

Immeke tells the story of the bees. Immeke inspires, builds, amazes and shares it knowledge. As well as looking into the future, Immeke looks back into the history o the bees.

 

Rinske Kreukniet (1976) qualified as a designer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She works as an art teacher at a Steiner School in Rotterdam and has a wide range of experiences in art and cultural education in primary and secondary schools.

She focuses her work on the point where art and craftsmanship intersect. Apart from teaching art to her students she also enjoys giving them an insight into bee keeping and all that it entails.

Together with her students she designed and produced a 'natural beehive' which is reproduced and sold by a new class every year. She also has the ambition to get a beehive to every Steiner School in the country. Since 2019, she has had an apiary on campus in collaboration with Erasmus University. Together with the gardener, she runs the Campusgarden with garden- and bee- working days for and with students.

 

Angelique de Meijer (1967) gained her doctorate in combined humanities programme at the University of Nijmegen and studied in Tours (France)

She currenty works at the Dutch Royal library. In 2003 she studied biodynamic agriculture. This is where she discovered the symbiosis between the honey bee and the natural landscape. Her focus lies with the cultural and historic aspects of the honeybee. You can read more about her findings on the blog (link)

 

Together, Rinske and Angelique form Immeke. They completed the Beekeeping course at BD-Imkers Nederland. Their inspiration is the being of the bee. Immeke and the bees can be found in Trompenburg Tuinen and Arboretum , at the campusgarden from the Erasmus University Rotterdam  and on a rooftop on a Steiner School in Rotterdam.