In today’s quest for healthier living, many individuals are turning to organic food options. The Beeamond Urban Indoor Beehive represents an innovative solution tailored to enable the collection of various honey bee products within the confines of your home or business premises. Utilizing innovatively designed adds on, this system facilitates the
gathering of bee products such as honey, pollen, and propolis, while also allowing for the inhalation of aromatic air from the hive and the bee venom treatment. Constructed from highly transparent and durable plexiglass-acrylic glass, it ensures safe urban beekeeping without the need for direct contact.
The Beeamond Urban Indoor Beehive can be installed in various settings such as households, business premises, and educational institutions. Included in the delivery package is an adjustable wall mount, simplifying the installation process. With this mount, you can easily attach the beehive to a suitable interior location of your choice.
To facilitate the bees’ entry and exit from the hive within an urban environment, it’s necessary to create an opening in the wall for the hose that connects to the hive. The hose will serve as a real little avenue for the bees to enter and exit the hive and perform their daily tasks.
Please refer to the user manual or instruction video.
Bees and queen bee are not included in the delivery package. You can easily acquire a bee colony and queen bee from your local beekeeper.
After mounting the beehive in your interior, colonizing Beeamond’s urban indoor beehive with bees is necessary. With each Beeamond Urban Indoor Beehive Model in the delivery package, you also get a bee box, which serves to transport bees from the apiary and colonize the Beeamond Urban Indoor Beehive. You also get the traveling queen cage, a special disposable add on for transferring and inserting the queen bee into the Beeamond Urban Indoor Beehive. The optimal amount of bees that should be added in the apiary to the bee box is about 0.65 kg of honey bees – Apis mellifera (around 6500 bees).
Please refer to the user manual or instruction video.
With the Beeamond urban indoor beehive, you also get a bee feeder – a special modular add-on that helps your bees thrive, stay healthy, and be fed appropriately in case of insufficient nectar and pollen flow. If your bee colony declines for any reason, you can always add more bees to strengthen the colony.
Honey bees have a very precise sense of orientation, so as soon as they start using the entry-exit port with a hose (entrance set), they will know where to go in and out. If you install the urban indoor beehive according to the instructions, you will not have any problems. The entry-exit opening should be at least 50 cm away from windows and doors.
To use the aesthetic or productive model of the Beeamond Urban Indoor Beehive, significant previous experience in the field of urban beekeeping is not necessary. When working with a professional model and using honeycomb
supers, it is desirable to have previous beekeeping experience. It is necessary to consult an apitherapist on correct using the bee venom therapy set.
To use the aesthetic or productive model of the Beeamond urban indoor beehive, significant previous experience in the field of urban beekeeping is not necessary. When working with a professional model and using honeycomb supers, it is desirable to have previous beekeeping experience. It is necessary to consult with an apitherapist to use the bee venom therapy set.
What makes the Beeamond Urban Indoor Beehive different from other observation hives? There are many observation hives in the world market, but none of them provides
bee products, nor can they be used for bee venom therapy or Api-inhalation.
Yes, your bees will have enough food in the city because bees have a very large foraging range when it comes to searching for nectar-bearing plants.
Expert sources indicate that their range is even over 10 km in diameter. The most common range is about 5 km, meaning bees gather nectar and pollen from an area of about 8,000 hectares. This is a huge area, so even in cities with high building density and low levels of green infrastructure, bees can always find food for themselves.
Let’s take urban beekeeping and honey production in Belgrade as an example, which has experienced significant expansion in recent years. Despite the high air pollution in Belgrade, which is often at the top of the list of world metropolises by that criterion, Belgrade honey consistently wins gold medals at fairs. According to all analyses, it is highly pure and free of heavy metal residues.
Honey from urban areas is not loaded with agrochemicals and pesticides. As soon as you leave the city, you enter an area of intensive agriculture, where every centimeter is cultivated, surrounded by monoculture crops and plants (sunflower, oilseed rape, etc.). These crops are treated by agricultural producers. After their blossoming period (which lasts only two weeks), all these areas become completely “bare” until the following year. Also, no one treats park plants in the city, such as linden, chestnut, Japanese pagoda tree, Chinese scholar tree, acacia, wild weeds, and many other plants. The floral composition, i.e., the diversity of blossoming plants in the city and their availability throughout the entire flowering period, is much larger (more diverse) than in rural areas where monoculture plants prevail, uniformity of nutrition, and pollen deserts (e.g., hectares and hectares of wheat and corn where bees have nothing to look for).
Diverse nutrition in the urban environment significantly helps the development of bees and contributes to the better quality of honey.
Regarding the quality of honey, we can refer to scientific publications that have followed the chemical composition of honey originating from urban areas.
Let’s take a study as an example of honey sampled from the strict center of Zemun. Using modern analyses (ICP-QMS and GC-MS), it was found that honey from urban areas was by European and domestic regulations on approved limit values when it comes to the presence of pesticides and heavy metals.
During years of research to create the best beehive design suitable for interior use, we tested various materials such as glass, wood, Plexiglas-acrylic glass, and combinations thereof.
The choice fell on Plexiglas – acrylic glass, for the following reasons:
– Plexiglas – acrylic glass is certified for safe food contact (food-grade quality) by the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration), which is very important so that all bee products from Beeamond urban indoor beehives can be consumed;
– The high degree of transparency – the transparency of Plexiglas – acrylic glass is 92%, which is the highest physically possible transparency of any material. The feature of being as transparent as the finest optical glass was one of the key criteria for choosing Plexiglas – acrylic glass as the material for making Beeamond urban indoor beehives. Beeamond urban indoor beehives are used in scientific research, education, and hobby beekeeping. Therefore, it is necessary for the material from which they are made to be transparent;
– The simplicity of fabrication (the ability of Plexiglas – acrylic glass to be thermoformed) – Beeamond urban indoor beehives are assembled manually using 398 individual parts of Plexiglas – acrylic glass, which is laser-cut, bent as needed and manually finished to fit together. When assembling the hexagonal core body of the beehive, no glue is used, only screws plated with 24-karat gold. It takes up to 4 days of manual assembly to complete one Beeamond urban indoor beehive with all modules and add-ons. The process of manual fitting of small and complex parts to create the targeted design and functionality of Beeamond urban indoor beehives would be almost unfeasible with any other material;
– High resistance to breakage – Plexiglas – acrylic glass is ten times more durable than glass of the same thickness;
– Low mass – Plexiglas – acrylic glass is half the weight of glass of the same thickness;
– Dimensional stability and heat resistance – Plexiglas – acrylic glass is highly resistant to shrinking and deformation over long periods of time;
– Plexiglas – acrylic glass is UV stable;
– Recycling – Plexiglas – acrylic glass is fully recyclable thermoplastic. The recycling process can be repeated without the possibility of the material losing its properties. This makes it one of just a few materials that are economically and functionally viable for recycling;
– Processing – Plexiglas – acrylic glass sheets are cut with a high-power laser, so there are no chips and microplastics, as would be the case with cutting using mechanical tools. Careful product design minimizes cutting waste. All remaining Plexiglas – acrylic glass after the laser cutting process is separated for recycling, i.e., it does not end up in the landfills, therefore avoiding the concern of the possibility for microplastics to finish off in the soil, groundwater, and rivers;
– Transport and delivery – Plexiglas – acrylic glass can be easily transported and delivered to all continents since it has all the necessary internationally recognized certificates;
– Plexiglas – acrylic glass has a long lifespan, and it is very easy to replace parts on Beeamond urban indoor beehives if needed.
Due to all the reasons mentioned above, Plexiglas-acrylic glass is our choice for the most suitable and sustainable material for making Beeamond urban indoor beehives.
Bees are not enclosed but are free to enter and exit the beehive. Regarding the system itself, it is much more humane than if the bees were outdoors. In colder parts of the world (Canada and Scandinavian countries), bees in traditional beehives are brought indoors into special rooms. Also, high summer temperatures heat traditional beehives, causing bees to create a beard and exit their beehives, flapping their wings to cool and preserve the nest. The Beeamond indoor urban beehive maintains a constant temperature both in winter and summer.
Bees regulate and maintain the optimal temperature themselves; it’s only essential that the system is at room temperature.
The system has an Anel frame foundation where bees build comb. The beehive itself is modular, allowing the addition of two or more hexagonal core bodies and two or more super add-ons, providing additional space for comb construction (similar to the conventional beehives). Of course, comb replacement is possible, as the entire system can be completely disassembled and reassembled without tools (the system is not assembled using glue).
Bees can produce drone nests when there is a need for them. However, since it is a mini-colony, they do not have a strong urge to produce drones, so drone production is minimal.
Bees are not bothered by light; many swarms establish their colonies outdoors (on branches, under house eaves) where there is also light. In nature, bees carry out their activities regardless of the illumination level, and their ability to navigate and collect food remains unaffected.
The Beeamond system is designed to provide bees with a safe and comfortable working environment, with optimal lighting and ventilation.
Nevertheless, they should not be exposed to direct and intense sunlight because the heat of the sun’s rays can melt the wax out of which the comb is made.
During the winter, bees are dormant; they do not form traditional clusters like in traditional beehives because they are placed in room temperature conditions. When the external temperature drops below 12-13 degrees Celsius, the bees will not risk going outside even if the indoor temperature is higher.
The primary idea that supports the Beeamond urban indoor beehives is their application as scientific research tools, educational aids, and apitherapy devices. The design of the beehive itself and its capacity to accommodate a relatively small bee colony are not intended for intensive honey harvesting, as is the case with traditional beehives housing large bee colonies.
Beeamond urban indoor beehives focus on coexistence with our little friends who play a significant role in the ecosystem. Bee products (honey, pollen, and propolis) collected in relatively small quantities can be used or not, depending on the beehive user’s decision.
The amount of honey, pollen, and propolis bees produce depends on the location, time of year, and climatic conditions.
If you have a larger number of nectar-producing plants in your urban environment, you may be able to harvest a larger quantity of these products.
Depending on the season and nectar source (bee grazing), the amount of collected honey can vary from a few tablespoons to several hundred grams. Pollen is the most accessible product, with even up to a full spoon of pollen grains collected daily during good pollen season (grazing).
The beehive user can decide on the limit when and whether to collect pollen using a special slot with a grid texture that bees cross at the beehive entrance. The add-on for inhaling aromatic bee air and the add-on for bee venom therapy can be used more actively.
The Beeamond urban indoor beehive is made of Plexiglas – acrylic glass, which is a durable and sturdy material designed to withstand external influences. There is always a certain possibility of damaging or cracking of the beehive due to careless use, as with any other product. To minimize risks for the users in this regard, our beehive is designed so that the bee colony is housed in two protective layers made of Plexiglas – acrylic glass. The beehive is securely fixed to the wall with the wall mount.
So far, we have installed beehives in many public institutions. As can be seen in the photos, we have beehives in schools, restaurants, zoos, and offices, and we have not encountered any problems or negative experiences.
Essentially, everything is similar to traditional beehives. If preventive measures are taken, swarming can be prevented. A queen excluder is designed as a separating card to prevent the queen bee from laying eggs on both sides of the beehive, thus reducing the possibility of community development, i.e., expanding the bee colony. Additionally, the entire system is modular, allowing another hexagonal core body (beehive) and additional room for the bees. There are also add-ons for a queen replacement and a cage with a new queen.
The frames are made of plastic and have been approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) as a safe material for contact with food. It is absolutely possible to replace every segment of the beehive, as the entire system can be disassembled, allowing for the replacement of frames as needed.
A special slot, called the Varroa tick slot, is designed and inserted into the system, with a special bar added to it on an organic basis, assisting in the control and suppression of the Varroa tick population.
The feeding is similar to that of traditional beehives. Within its system, the Beeamond urban indoor beehive has a feeder. If feeding is needed during the winter or throughout the season, a 1:1 honey syrup is added.
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