This year at Dutch Deign Week, Philips unveiled an intriguing prototype that allows apartment dwellers to have a beehive in the home. The concept of the Urban Beehive was submitted as a part of their Microbial Home Design project, a "domestic ecosystem that challenges conventional design solutions to energy, cleaning, food preservation, lighting and human waste."
The beehive design consists of two parts: "an entry passage and flower pot outside, and glass vessel containing an array of honeycomb frames, inside. The glass shell filters light to let through the orange wavelength which bees use for sight. The frames are provided with a honeycomb texture for bees to build their wax cells on. Smoke can be released into the hive to calm the bees before it is opened, in keeping with established practice."
While the design is still a prototype at the moment, its exciting to think about the possibility of opening up beekeeping to city dwellers. Bees are such an integral part of our eco system and have been in danger for some time, hopefully with some creative thinking, their population will once again thrive.
• Read more Philips Urban Beehive
(Images: As linked)
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It looks neat, but doesn't change the fact that bees need their space undisturbed, which in my experience is a radius of about 15 feet. You can't raise bees on a porch or a deck that you plan to use for gardening, eating out, etc. A corner of an urban rooftop, yes, but what's the value of the slick new design then?
Someone clearly hasn't done any "actually" beekeeping.
Wow. I am glad bees are getting so much attention. Maybe we can find a way to help them survive. But this design doesn't contribute to the future of bees. I'm amazed that Phillips spent money developing this!
1 -- bees build comb vertically, not diagonally. they use gravity to keep the honey in the cells.
2 -- if you smoke a beehive and then open it *inside your house* your house will be full of smoke and pissed off bees.
3 -- there's no way to add space to this hive, so you would have constant swarms (talk about happy neighbors!) and no room for honey storage.
This hive's lack of removable frames means that it would probably not be allowed for beekeeping use within the United States.
Bees need to be able to regulate the temperature of their hive - a bee hive with transparent sides placed in full sunlight would probably cook the bees.