Erika Mayr (1973) has been trained as a landscape gardener and horticulturist. While developing a project for Detroit in 2004, she discovered various aspects of urban beekeeping. Back in Berlin, Erika started her own beekeeping enterprise on rooftops and became a key figure in the upcoming beekeeping scene of the city. Over time she developed a specific taste and knowledge about honey and a way to share with people. As a co-founder of Stadthonigfest (2011-2018) she organised a yearly honey market at Prinzessinnengarten, at its first location in Berlin-Kreuzberg. As curator of the Honey Lab 2016 (Stadtlandfood Festival Markthalle Neun, Berlin) she collaboratively created a tasting bar with honey samples collected within the city limits and labelled with personal information about each beekeeper. During summer-schools organised by Animalesque-Berlin (2018,2019) the „bees+trees“ bicycle-tour through Berlin and the honey-tasting afterwards gave insights for the students of how everything around us is linked and connected. Erika was director of the Charlottenburg Beekeepers Association from 2008 to 2019. In 2020 she relocated to Rome, where she is transforming the green areas at the German Academy Villa Massimo towards a more bee-friendly and sustainable garden. She also installed her apiary of 6 bee-families.
