Would You Keep Bees in Your Apartment? Maybe You Would With This Artistic Hive

Who wouldn't want the comforting buzz and sweet smell of honey -- not to mention fresh supply -- that comes from being a beekeeper their city dwelling apartment?

The "Urban Beehive" modernizes the traditional beehive in an artsy, ready-for-display design. According to Popular Science the "Urban Beehive" is designed by Philips Microbial Home Probe project, which seeks to challenge the "conventional design solutions to energy, cleaning, food preservation, lighting and human waste."

PopSci describes the Urban Beehive as two parts that attach to your apartment window:

A white frontispiece with a flower pot and a small hole for bee entry, and an orange-hued glass inverted teardrop mounted inside your house. This way you can see the bees at work, and access their honey via a small spigot. The glass teardrop has an array of honeycomb frames for bees to build their wax cells, like existing honeybee colony kits do. The shell is orange to help the bees navigate, and there’s a small hole for the urban beekeeper to release smoke inside, should the hive ever need to be opened (smoke chills out the bees).

According to Philips, three parties benefit from this contraption. The city benefits with an increased bee population to pollinate plants. The dwindling bee population has a new place to begin colonizing;  it "encourages the return of the urban bee." And humans benefit from the honey and "the therapeutic value of observing these fascinating creatures in action."

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a decline in bee populations were first observed in 2006 and have continued to drop since. Fox News reported bee populations have been declining at a rate of 30 percent each year.