Built during the 15th and 16th centuries by the Brigasques, name of the inhabitants of La Brigue, in the upper Roya Valley, these bee houses are a kind of dry stone enclosure whose purpose is to protect the bees and their honey from the appetites of brown bears, badgers, thieves and bad weather.
Called "ca d'arbinée", there are about fifty of them left today.
Built on a hillside, exposed to the rising sun, such houses could house a hundred hives. In the shape of an amphitheater, they have no roof and each one is under the protection of a saint.
Some Ca d'arbinée were rebuilt because the walls had collapsed. There are about fifty of them in La Brigue, some in Tende and Saorge.
