McMaster Bee Webcam – Watch Native Bees Nest on Campus

The McMaster Bee Webcam looks straight at a row of wooden bee homes on the campus of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Five diamond-shaped boxes sit along a curved timber beam, each packed with nesting tubes, with a wall of leafy shrubs behind them. Nothing here is staged. Solitary native bees come and go from the tube ends, seal them up once an egg is laid, and leave the boxes looking quiet again. In summer the sun throws hard diagonal shadows across the beam and the foliage is thick and green. By late autumn the leaves thin out and the tubes are closed for the winter. It is a small, close view, and that is the point: you watch one working piece of a campus-wide project to give Ontario’s native bees somewhere to nest.

About the McMaster University Bee Homes

McMaster University was founded in 1887 in Toronto and moved to Hamilton in 1930. Its main campus covers 152.4 hectares (377 acres) in the city’s west end, between the Westdale and Ainslie Wood neighbourhoods, with Main Street West on its southern edge and the Cootes Paradise marsh to the north. In the 2024 to 2025 academic year it had 37,256 students.

The bee homes are part of the Native Bees at McMaster project. Facility Services built 50 solitary bee homes in 2019 and added 25 more in 2021, for 75 across campus, and in 2020 the project earned McMaster a Bee Campus designation from Bee City Canada. A live-feed bee camera followed, and the stream on this channel has been running since August 2022. The camera is an Axis M2025-LE, a compact outdoor model, and it stays fixed on the same boxes.

What goes into the tubes has changed over time. In 2024 the university swapped bamboo for paper straws, and research by Master’s students found more native bees using the paper tubes. In 2025 about half of the original homes were rebuilt and restocked. Students in McMaster’s sustainability courses also built the Bee Path, which puts a QR code on each of the 75 bee homes so anyone walking campus can follow a route about native pollinators.

Weather and Climate in Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton sits at the western end of Lake Ontario, which takes the edge off both summer heat and winter cold. At Hamilton’s airport weather station, July averages a high of 26.6 C (79.9 F) and a low of 15.2 C (59.4 F). January averages a high of minus 1.4 C (29.5 F) and a low of minus 9.1 C (15.6 F). The city gets about 902 millimeters (35.5 inches) of precipitation a year, including around 156.5 centimeters (61.6 inches) of snow.

The bee homes follow the seasons closely. McMaster’s own research team monitors them from April to November, which is roughly the window when there is anything to see at the tube ends. Late spring and early summer tend to bring the most coming and going on warm, sunny days. Through the winter the boxes are still and the shrubs behind them are bare, and snow can settle along the top of the beam. Cool or rainy days in the warm season are quiet too, because solitary bees fly little in poor weather.

Things to Do Near McMaster University

The campus itself is worth a walk if bees brought you here. The McMaster Bee Trail, set up in the fall of 2024, links the bee homes and earlier student pollinator projects into a walking tour. The Adam Chiaravalle Native Bee Nesting Garden, McMaster’s first ground-nesting bee garden, opened in 2023 behind Alumni Memorial Hall, beside the Indigenous Circle and the edge of Cootes Paradise. It is left deliberately patchy with bare ground, because more than 80 percent of Ontario’s bee species nest in the soil rather than in tubes. The planting includes native species such as ninebark, staghorn sumac, pasture rose and downy serviceberry.

Beyond campus, Cootes Paradise is an extensive marshland that borders the university to the north, and the Royal Botanical Gardens lie close by. Hamilton also has more than 100 waterfalls and cascades, most of them on or near the Bruce Trail as it follows the Niagara Escarpment through the city, so a bee walk on campus pairs easily with a short hike to a falls. Westdale, right next to the campus, is the nearest neighbourhood for food and coffee.

Similar Webcams You Might Like

For more views from Ontario and other campuses, try these cameras.

• Niagara Falls Webcam
• Toronto CN Tower Webcam
• Iowa State University Webcam

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the McMaster Bee Webcam located?

The camera is on the main campus of McMaster University, at 1280 Main Street West in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The campus sits in the west end of the city, at the western tip of Lake Ontario, with the Cootes Paradise marsh along its northern side.

What can you see on the McMaster Bee Webcam?

A close view of five diamond-shaped wooden bee homes mounted on a curved beam, each filled with nesting tubes, against a background of shrubs. In the warm months solitary native bees land at the tube ends, go in to lay eggs and pack the tubes closed.

What is the weather like at McMaster University?

Hamilton has warm summers and cold, snowy winters. July highs average 26.6 C (79.9 F) and January lows average minus 9.1 C (15.6 F), with about 156.5 centimeters (61.6 inches) of snow a year.

When are the bees most active on the McMaster bee homes?

From spring into early autumn, on warm and sunny days. McMaster’s researchers monitor the homes from April to November. In winter and in cold or wet weather the tubes are usually quiet.

How many bee homes does McMaster University have?

There are 75. Fifty were built in 2019 and another 25 went up in 2021, and about half of the originals were rebuilt in 2025.

Why does McMaster use paper tubes in its bee homes?

The university replaced bamboo with paper straws in 2024. Research by Master’s students found more native bees nesting in the paper tubes, so the rebuilt homes were restocked with them.

Can you visit the McMaster bee homes in person?

Yes. The McMaster Bee Trail is a self-guided walking tour of the campus bee projects, and each of the 75 bee homes carries a QR code with information about native pollinators. The ground-nesting bee garden behind Alumni Memorial Hall is on the same route.

Is McMaster University a Bee City Campus?

Yes. The Native Bees at McMaster project received its Bee Campus designation from Bee City Canada in 2020, and the university has renewed it since.

Source: Jacob Westerhof – McMaster University