About the exhibition
When: 24 July to 28 August
‘The Power of Honey: Food, Finance and the Golden Age of Fraud’ is a new temporary exhibition at the Bank of England Museum, created and operated by Bompas & Parr, in association with the British Museum of Food, and sponsored by Visa and the City of London.
At the centre of the exhibition is the Bee-nomics Inspection Hive, a custom-built observation hive that brings living bees into the Museum. Visitors are invited to watch the colony patrol, communicate, protect resources and respond to risk, transforming the hive into a vivid living model for the systems of vigilance that underpin both food supply chains and financial protection.
Through live bees, honey-smelling challenges, UV banknote investigations, historic food fraud, ancient artefacts and family trails, the exhibition explores how trust is built, protected and deceived. It draws unexpected connections between the symbolic role of the hive in the Bank of England’s visual language, the global trade in honey, and the behavioural systems used to detect suspicious activity in modern finance.
The Bee-nomics Inspection Hive will be managed by Bermondsey Street Bees, a multi-award-winning sustainable beekeeping practice. To protect the welfare of the bees, colonies will be rotated regularly throughout the exhibition, with each group spending only a few days in the museum before returning to their home apiary in London’s Royal Docks.
The Power of Honey will make the invisible mechanics of fraud tangible. Visitors will have the opportunity to see trust being made in real time, test their own assumptions, and discover how cooperation, vigilance and shared belief shape the systems we rely on every day.
Alongside this exhibition, join us for related events, including workshops and a Museum Late. More information to come.
Essential Information
- This exhibition, and our entire Museum, is free to visit with no booking required (except for groups over 15).*
- *For related events, such as our Museum Lates, we recommend booking online to secure your place. Other events, including associated workshops, require booking.
- There is airport-style security at the Museum’s entrance.
- Last entry to the Museum is 4.30pm.
- For Museum accessibility, visit our accessibility page
