With the help from the craftsmen at Benchmark, Marlène carved the piece by hand to get the desired shape and the red oak was then blackened using a scorching technique, a technique in which the surface of the wood charred with a burner. It then took Marlène and her team in Paris 100 hours to add the tactile engraving details to the surface of the beehive using a pyrograph. Lastly, the surface of the beehive was covered with propolis, a dark resinous material produced by bees to seal gaps in the hive. Here, the material is used to protect the timber and to attract bees with its scent.