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Today more than half of the human population lives in urban areas. The dramatic demographic shift of recent decades comes with inevitable consequences – some predictable, like the need to build new houses, and some less so, like the rise in the urban honeybee population. With growing interest in honeybee sustainability and more cases of diseases fatally affecting honeybee colonies in the countryside, changes to promote beekeeping in cities have recently been made in legislation. For example, most cities in the USA at one time prohibited the keeping of bees, but in recent years, beekeepers have succeeded in overturning these bans. In some states, beekeepers even get grants for the purpose of increasing the city bee population. In the UK, beekeeping in cities is strictly regulated but at the same time strongly encouraged. Dramatic colony losses a decade ago prompted a national campaign urging people to keep bees and some cities started to run free courses teaching people about keeping bees on rooftops and balconies. As a result, the soothing sound of bees buzzing around green roof gardens has lately become much more common. Thus, in some small way, bees are contributing to the creation of environmentally friendly buildings.
Interestingly, some buildings can also benefit more directly from bees. It turns out that bees can act as security guards. Some time ago, journalists were talking about the recurring theft of lead from the roofs of some buildings and a unique counter-measure taken by their owners. Their roofs are now home to bees, which are a powerful deterrent to anyone intent on removing the lead. The very thought of being stung has the power to put thieves off. Regrettably, however, this doesn’t restrain the theft of rooftop beehives. Due to colony disease, honeybees have become so valuable that hive theft is on the rise. There are also cases of pest controllers who kill urban honeybees in abandoned houses after mistaking them for wasps.
In an original response to the idea of keeping bees in cities, a group of architecture students at the University of Buffalo designed an extraordinary construction for urban bees. It’s a steel tower, 22ft tall, called Elevator B, which can be placed on the roofs of buildings. On the outside, the tower is covered with hexagonal panels inspired by the natural honeycomb structure of beehives. Bees don’t occupy the full height of Elevator B, just a glass-bottomed box suspended near the top, a suitable new home for a thriving bee colony. People can enter the tower through an opening at its base and look up to see the industrious insects at work. And when beekeepers want to collect honey, they lower the glass bottomed box. It works like an elevator. This feature is also of value to school groups that visit the site of the prototype, as the children can get a close-up view.
I feel that when this modern type of beehive is successfully introduced to skyscrapers, they will then become high-rise luxury towers for bees, not only for people. It should be mentioned that the bees in Elevator B were forcibly relocated from their colony in a boarded-up window of an abandoned building and may well have been happier there. But such is progress.

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Interviewer: At first blush, it sounds like the talk of a conspiracy theorist: a company implanting microchips under their employees’ skin. But for some companies it’s neither a theory nor a conspiracy. Today my guest is Sam Bengtson, a software engineer in a technology company called Three Square Market. Welcome.
Sam Bengtson: Good evening.
Interviewer: What do you think about the idea of employees having chips implanted?
Sam Bengtson: Once you have a chip the size of a grain of rice injected between your thumb and index finger, any task involving Radio Frequency Identification technology, like swiping into the office building, paying for food in the cafeteria or logging onto your computer, can be accomplished with a wave of your hand. And it won’t need frequent updating or replacing like the devices we have now. When I was asked whether we should consider implementing the technology, I wanted to jump on the bandwagon as quickly as possible and not pussyfoot around for years, as other companies are likely to do. I arranged a meeting with my co-workers to see if this was something we wanted. I was astonished to find that an overwhelming majority were willing to give their consent to being microchipped. I was prepared for some criticism, particularly from the older staff members, who tend to be more distrustful of technological innovations, but in fact just a few of my colleagues opposed the idea. And even those who did were thrilled about the technology itself, but wary of having the device implanted in their body. They agreed to wear a ring with a chip instead.
Interviewer: Don’t you have any doubts about the idea of microchipping people? Surely it raises a variety of questions…
Sam Bengtson: Certainly, it does, like anything which is new.