If you are passionate about honeybees and want to raise them but were unable to do it because your small apartment did not have enough space to keep a hive, the Italian startup Beeing might have developed a decent solution for you.
They have created the B-box, a wood and polycarbonate beehive designed for simple and safe beekeeping at home. Its innovative design allows you to monitor bees and harvest honey without any protective gear or disturbing the bees.
This cube-shaped hive is handcrafted from solid red pine with a clear window in polycarbonate. Each unit comprises two main parts – the bigger one is the space for bees to live in and the other is where bees store the honey. Separate chambers make it extremely easy and safe to extract honey.
The beehive occupies less than 1-square-meter space, which means you can place it in a small patio or a balcony with ease. The solitary entry and exit space for bees is 7.2-feet above the ground so you can closely observe the beehive without worrying the bees. There is also a see-through polycarbonate window behind a removable wooden exterior panel, allowing users to see bees at work, storing honey and building the honeycomb.
The B-box features a simple and safe honey harvesting system. You just need to pull a lever to separate the honeycomb chamber from the rest of the hive. Bees will be able to exit the honeycomb chamber but not enter back in and within a few hours, all the bees will be gone. Then you can harvest fresh honey in a bee-free environment. You can take a small portion of honey each time and leave rest for your bees to have some too.
Also Read: Self-Extracting Beehive Dispenses Honey Without Disturbing Bees
The customizable beehive comes with 16 mini modular honeycomb frames, which one can use in a traditional manner, or chose to not include them, leaving the space for the bees to recreate in a manner they’d do in the wild.
B-box beehive is designed for those living in a space-constrained urban environment but want to produce and enjoy fresh honey. It is currently being crowd-funded on Indiegogo and you can back the campaign for a minimum of $618 to get one shipped your way in November 2019.
