Bee B&B - Creating Bee Sanctuaries in Urban Environments

For Marina Zurkow's Renatured class, our design team (myself, Adam Quinn and Xuedi Chen) designed a structure to improve the productivity, strength and health of bees in urban confines. 

Since New York legalized beekeeping in 2010, the practice has taken off. To our surprise, our research showed us that bees actually prefer urban environments, especially during the winter. This is due to the predominance of monoculture farming practices in suburban and rural areas. The lack of diversity of flowering plant life, which bees depend upon, on farms is a common problem. This, in conjunction with the inherent heat of the city draws bees into urban confines.

Yet cities are harsh and winters can be brutal. How can we improve the likelihood for urban bee survival"?

Bees in Winter

  • Almost a third of all of the managed bee colonies in the United States — 31.1 percent — didn't survive last winter.

  • Honeybee colonies which are suffering from poor nutrition become more vulnerable to disease and other stress factors in the winter.

  • If colonies are smaller as a result of the poor summer, they can also find it harder to survive the winter as they cluster together in cold weather and can starve if the smaller cluster is not close to food stores within the hive.

Bees Needs

  • Access to water year round

  • Takes around 100 pounds of honey to survive the winter. In order to create this, they need to be stockpiling nectar and pollen during the year

  • Important to plant late in season to provide access to last haul of pollen and nectar before winter

beekeeper.jpg
9162162932_77dd8073de_b.jpg

Our Beehive Bed & Breakfast:

  • Provides a protective enclosure that:

    • Houses flowering plants in planters above hive. Planters reflect regional specificity of Spring to Fall wild flowers. 

    • Maximizes high pollen yielding flowering plants at each interval of season
    • Supplies bess with year round water source

latest_bbb.png
3_4_VIEW.png

Our Prototype: