Urban Beekeeping

How might design encourage, facilitate, and improve the urban beekeeping experience?

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Sketching through some Hive concepts

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Interlam uses CNC routing to make some epic topographical treatments to panels (MDF, solid wood, and synthetic materials)

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CLICK HERE to support Flow Hive Honey on Tap Directly From Your Beehive

3 Million in three days!!! The "FlowFrame" is probably the greatest innovation in beekeeping since beekeeping.  Their design allows for honey to be harvested from hives without disturbing the hive.  This design improvement is ideal for suburban beekeepers in that it prevents angering the bees, reducing accidental stings.  The dimensions of the frames fit almost all modern hive types, and is ideally suited to be integrated into the Langstroth hive design (75% of beekeepers use this design). 

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An epic info graph from http://www.ritholtz.com.  The graphic gives an excellent overview of the declining bee epidemic.  In the US and Canada the bee population has declined by 50% since 1979, while the global population has almost doubled in a very similar timeframe.  This is kind of scary….

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Philips came out with an urban bee keeping concept that attaches to a window.  A hole in the glass allows the bees to enter the hive, and a large glass pod keeps the bees from getting into the owners dwelling.  Supposedly honey can be extracted from the bottom, but I'm not sure that's really how honey extraction works...

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"Flow" honey supers allow beekeepers to extract honey without disturbing the hive.  This innovative honey super design has an interface much like a beer tap, but the function is similar to draining sap from maple trees.  The product goes live on KickStarter February 23rd, check out their website! http://www.honeyflow.com

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Monitoring colony weight over time enables a bee keeper to better understand their colony health and how productive the bees are being.  There has to be a better way then using a bathroom scale! http://www.slideshare.net/frank.linton/fast-cheap-hive-scale

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NASA is monitoring the weight of specific hives over time to try and understand climate change is it relates to bee colony health.  http://honeybeenet.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sites/national_map.htm

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Innovative Wireless Beehive Scales

An affordable alternative to remotely monitor beehives.  A cool concept for bee farmers but the jury is still out on the affect of wi-fi and other electromagnetic forces and their affect of colony health 

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This hive scale design by Arnia, a company based in the UK, enables bee keepers to monitor hive weight via a smartphone.  http://www.arnia.co.uk/hive-scales/.  The concept is very cool and the data accumulated over time is very valuable.  However, certain electromagnetic frequencies have been shown to have a negative affect on hive behavior. 

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A scale to weigh a beehive without disturbing the colony.  An interesting DIY project by "trearick" at instructables. http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-scale-to-weigh-bee-hives/.  Although it's a cool concept it doesn't allow for the measure of individual supers, and conditions have to be ideal for the scale to be accurate. 

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Luxembourg Beekeeping.  The Luxembourg gardens provide enough horticultural diversity to support a high density of bee colonies.  Pretty cool...

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Spikenard Farm is a local bee keeping sanctuary in Floyd.  Their mission is to spread ethical beekeeping practices.  Although the bees are overwintering I will be touring their facility and interviewing their program manager next week. 

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Really cool urban beekeeping program in Europe.  The telescoping pole raises the bee hives about 20' above pedestrians, enabling hives to be kept in high traffic pedestrian areas.  Community outreach is a large component of their program. https://beecollective.wordpress.com/sky-hive/ 

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Jamie Hutchinson isn't after honey, but the spherical design provides bees with protection from the elements.  The interior provides an area for the bees to rest next to a small reservoir of simple syrup, so the bees can refuel.    

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Based out of North Carolina, Brushy Mountain Bee Farm offers a lot of informative videos about beekeeping through their youtube channel. 

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Urban Beekeeping in Hong Kong.  HK Honey is a very cool brand, and despite the scarcity of green space in Hong Kong, the bees are still managing to forage and produce honey.