Kent Stiles, who champions the "Urban Apiculture Development Program" for the South Eastern Michigan Beekeepers Association (SEMBA) writes a thought provoking and frequently updated column on how his project is unfolding.

Mr Stiles is interested in exploring beekeeping in urban environments and finds the Top Bar Hive to be well suited for this kind of endeavor.  While he clearly has a vision in mind that includes true urban landscapes (NYC? London?, could work) he plans to start first in suburban communities by forming small groups of local beekeepers to collaborate with. "My hope is to deal with the impact of practicing beekeeping in all types of local geographical environments, but with the focus on the impact of the trend toward increasing urbanization. However, for practical reasons, I will be focusing initially on "suburban" environments" says Mr. Stiles in his article.

We were quite pleased that Kent found us and found this website helpful. Here is what he has to say about BackYardHive.com:  

"If you are not familiar with top-bar hives, the website that I found most useful for starting to learn about them is: www.backyardhive.com. Of course, they are selling top-bar hives and so their claims of the advantages of their hives need to be confirmed. However, as a gardener and a homeowner, I am tempted to purchase their more expensive hive for its attractiveness in the garden, and other non-utilitarian reasons, if only because it might even make it seem less threatening to my neighbors"

Thanks Kent, we think it's worth it too.  But of course more frugal and industrious beekeeping zealots can use our free plans to build their own. Either way, it's all good for the bees.

You can read Kent's complete article here: 

http://www.sembabees.org/nonnavpages/urban.html