I'm having climate envy looking at what's growing in the background in that picture. Someday I hope to live in a municipality that allows beekeeping. That looks like a cool design.

I really want to do this. Hopefully, they will be for sale soon.

I would love to do this too...what are some of the reasons that municipalities don't allow urban beekeeping? My city's web site doesn't mention it, and I can't find any good info via a web search.

A local beekeeper keeps hives in my backyard. The hive is not the difficult thing. Handling the bees, dealing with pests and swarms, etc is the hard part. If you want to keep bees and be successful find a pro to mentor you. The keeper has let me suit up and watch when they work on the hives. It is fascinating but takes a lot of work and attention.

@StayAtHomeSci the downside to the year-round garden is there is never a season to really clean up. Here in Seattle my garden has had something blooming all winter but it has been too wet to cut back the old stuff or weed.

Love the look of these, but I'm not sure how much this simplifies the process of beekeeping. Except for eliminating frame assembly (since this is a top bar method), bees still require a lot of care and monitoring, which will not just go away because your hive is cute. Also, all hives are stackable--it's how they work, most require assembly (which aside from reduced shipping costs, not sure how that's a plus), and some come painted already. I'd be interested to know if this is compatible with most beekeeping accessories. If not, then he needs to design those too. There is huge debate about plastic being the "right" way. Bees actually don't choose plastic, if given the choice of wood/wax or plastic. Would love to see more information on this before seeing it as a viable option.

In theory, it's a great idea.

Just don't be like my semi-hoarder Berkeley neighbor, who has stacks upon stacks of these all over his property....adjoining a school. Some people, especially children, may have severe allergies to bee stings. It isn't cool to concentrate them so heavily in an area where they have such high liklihood of coming into contact with a sensitive person who's legally required to be there (ie at school). And seriously, we have urban chicken coops everywhere too. A big group of them escaped last week, and we had no idea who's door we should knock on first! Crazytown!

There are many different ways to keep bees. If they can adapt to the inside of a hollow log, they will do fine in these boxes.

But one of the things that make it easier to be a beekeeper is to do it within a community of other beekeepers. If the parts of your hive aren't interchangeable with the hives of others then you'll never be able to borrow a frame of brood from a friend. It might not seem like a big deal until you need it.

I love these...we had great luck with our hives in suburban RI, but were always worried about neighbors. We had a large lot and tucked the hive as far away as possible from the properties on either side (bordered an empty lot on the back). These hives seem more incognito. Eventually, we moved to Northern Maine and battled winterizing the hives & black bears. Definitely better results for honey flow in suburbia.

The close proximity to the neighbors is the general issue. Bees will sting, hives can be noisy, and they will cluster at each available garden with flowers (which could cause neighbors to be upset). My city doesn't allow chicken coops and basically all farm animals due to these reasons, including odor.

I have had hives in my yard for three years now and have never been stung even when weeding close to the hives. If I get too close a guard bee runs into me to encourage me to move away. Honeybees are not aggressive at all so the chances of a neighbor getting stung are minimal. The only time they are remotely noisy is when they are swarming. While that is probably frightening for those who are already afraid of bees, again you are not likely to get stung. They are tanked up on honey and need to make that last until they are in a new home so they aren't active. I have stood within 6 feet of the swarm while the keeper was collecting it, had them land on me, and not been stung.

Since most of my neighbors have fruits and vegetables they seem to appreciate the bees for pollination.

For those interested in bees, you may want to start with native bees. Supporting them is much simpler.

there is a huge problem with having enough pollinators. In the past, fallen trees and other habitats existed in abundance, but with increased development comes the need for everyone to own an english garden and there's no home for bees. I love this idea from an environmental standpoint.

For those of you who are interested, check with your local cooperative extension service office or state beekeeping association to see if any classes are scheduled in your area. Many classes are free or offered at minimal cost during this relatively "slow" time of the year.

@meganvanfleet: Since these prototypes are top bar hives, the bees will be "drawing out" their own comb. This makes the issue of "wood/wax or plastic" a moot issue since top bar hives do not use frames or premade foundation. Other than providing the wooden bars themselves (perhaps with something for proper bee space placement of the bars), not much equipment would be necessary to start with beyond a feeder, a hive tool and a smoker.

No matter how I support beekeeping in generally, I'm not sure whether it should be that simple for everyone - or not?! Why shouldn't it take some ammount of commitment to become a (good) beekeeper?
In fact, we're talking about animals - about intensive animal husbandry.
The bees are bred less aggressive for hobby-beekeeping and they're no longer natural and strong enough to fight the diseases they suffer under nowadays.
I highly recommend the swiss film 'More than honey'
http://www.morethanhoney.senator.de/
And at the moment runs an avaaz-initiative to encourage the european union to vote against the use of most strongest pesticides:
http://www.avaaz.org/de/hours_to_save_the_bees_rb/?bhuELab&v=21541

The biggest mistake I've ever seen people make in getting into beekeeping is to buy non-standard equipment. You will need more stuff, want accessories like feeders or pollen traps or screened bottom boards, and it will be completely unavailable or only available at a great premium.

The ordinary beekeeping equipment is very standardized, you can run it as a top-bar or framed hive if that is what you want. It is relatively cheap and easy to build. If you want you can trade with other beekeepers. There are lots and lots and lots of accessories available. I just cannot see any reason to buy a silly system like this. It's definitely not going to somehow make beekeeping easier, since that is less about equipment and more about judgement.

Also, if what you want is pollinators, honeybees are actually very poor pollinators of North American plants (being an invasive species and all). The native pollinators are the ones we need to protect, and their main threat is loss of habitat due to construction and landscaping with non-native plants. While I love honeybees and keep them, I also provide habitat for native bees and plant native plants for them.

@ayse makes several great points. For those interested in supporting native bees, I suggest this as one great starting point:

http://www.crownbees.com/

Then check out local resources for native plants. Since I added many native plants to my garden I not only get more native bees, I see more interesting insects of all types and more birds as well.

As someone with a serious bee sting allergy, beekeeping as a trend annoys me. Every time I read a post like this, I look for the bit that says "talk with your neighbours first, to determine that none of them have life-threatening allergies" and I'm always disappointed that this NEVER gets mentioned. Instead, I read throwaway comments about the fact that bees "rarely" sting so it's an overrated issue. I'm here to tell you that you only need to get stung once if you have a severe enough reaction. It's great for those people who say they've never been stung. I wish I could say the same. For some reason, I get stung on average every couple of years (and no, it's not because I panic or do anything to provoke it; bees just tend to fly into me, or else I step or sit on them; my luck). I keep an epi pen with me at all times. I'd be furious if one of my neighbours set up hives without asking around, because I'd be pretty certain that my sting rate was about to skyrocket.

Don't get me wrong. I like bees, and I get the fact that we need to make our cities more friendly to pollinators (many of which don't even have stingers, like my good friends the mason bees). I plant native flowers in my garden, and I've built a really simple mason bee house (based on these plans: http://diyrobj98168.blogspot.ca/2008/08/how-to-make-mason-bee-houses.html?m=1).

But as ayes points out above, honeybees aren't even great pollinators. And they're a lot of work. They are living things that have a complex dynamic. Is the average beekeeping newbie prepared to deal with work involved in maintaining a hungry hive that can't yet support itself on local nectar? Or with swarming? (Again, if my neighbours kept bees, and they swarmed into my yard, I would be livid.)

It just seems to me that a lot of people are jumping on a bandwagon without really thinking it through. Kudos to the folks who take the time to educate themselves about what here doing, and why they're doing it, and for taking the important extra step of being sensitive to their neighbours.

Tammy, don't worry. Most newbie beekeepers will kill off their hives or drive them into absconding in the first year, and replacement bees are $100 per package. That prices a lot of people out of continuing with the hobby.

When I moved my hives into my suburban neighborhood, I asked all the neighbors who could or would talk to me and made sure they were OK with the hives. No bee allergies here, thank goodness. I also keep them all well-supplied with honey and honey comb. Similar to how I give them eggs from my obnoxious loud chickens; sharing does help keep the peace.

On the other hand, a hive in my backyard doesn't actually make a beesting more likely for my neighbors. Most places have enough existing feral hives of honey bees to make life dangerous for you (I know of two that were near me for years). Bees tend to fly up and away from their own hive; I log pollinators on my trees and I haven't seen any increase in bees in my own yard since I put hives back there last year (I used to keep them out in an agricultural area). And swarming honeybees are not the same as swarming wasps. Unlike swarming wasps, which are attacking, a swarm of honeybees is looking for a new home and they are at their gentlest and most handle-able because they are not defending brood (google "bee beard" some time if you do not have an insect phobia).

@goldspinner entrance reducer, screen and solid tops, a telescoping top for weather protection, queen separator, and a screen for the top. not to mention smaller supers for honey stores--these are big boxes and would be about 75 lbs if full of honey. some of these accessories may only be necessary in climates with drastic temperature swings, but a well-designed product should be able to serve as many markets as it can.

If you are thinking about beekeeping Plan Bee is a great book to read to get an idea of what it is like. The book is a true story about a woman who wanted to raise chicken but her neighborhood wouldn't allow it so she did bees instead.

Plan Bee: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Hardest-Working Creatures on thePlanet
Susan Brackney (Author)

http://www.amazon.com/Plan-Bee-Everything-Hardest-Working-Creatures/dp/0399535985/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359754385&sr=1-2&keywords=Plan+Bee

@meganvanfleet: The items items that you mentioned aren't necessary for a top bar hive, BTW, I'm a beekeeper.