ALL over the world, town gardens and urban green spaces now have their part to play in the race to save the globe's honeybee populations that are seriously in decline in many countries.

Bees do more than make honey, they help to pollinate farmland crops to trees, flowers and garden vegetables. Without them food production would drop enormously.

Now, the latest designed beehive, launched by a UK company, will make it easy for anyone - from amateurs to seasoned apiarists - to help bees find a home almost anywhere, from a small garden, rooftop, even a balcony area in a block of flats. The makers hope their new product will spread, like bee colonies, across the world as far as possible, safeguarding bees and giving back delicious free food.

The strikingly modern, plastic-panelled hive - called the Beehaus - has been developed with leading beekeepers to be a 21st-century home for the honey-makers and has urban spaces very much in mind, everywhere.

The young, imaginative company behind the hive - Omlet - hopes it will as big a seller internationally as its first product, launched in 2004, a similarly modern-designed Eglu chicken house. This sparked a new wave of urban chicken keeping and can work also for rabbits or guinea pigs.

Later came the bigger Cube chicken house for up to 10 hens with a built-in laying box, a great success. Omlet director Johannes Paul said: "So far, we have has sold 30,000 units with most of them going to the United States, South Africa, Australia, Europe and the UK.

"Regarding the Beehaus, we believe there should be a very real market in the US and the rest of Europe, with strong demand coming from there and other traditional areas that have taken to our colourful and innovative designs," he added.

The Beehaus was launched the end of the beekeeping season (in most countries) to inspire apiarists to look ahead to next year. Johannes Paul hopes to take the export process further afield and will look at setting up wholesalers and distributors in future. "But it's too early to say. Up to now, everything we sell is done by us direct to the customer."

The Beehaus's green credentials seem good enough to get the support of conservation organisation Natural England. Its chief scientist Dr Tom Tew said: "There is no reason why our towns and cities should exist as wildlife deserts - wildlife can thrive when we design our urban areas with nature in mind and the Beehaus is a great example of how easy it is for anyone to bring the natural world closer to their doorstep."

The Beehaus measures about one metre wide and 0.5m high, twice the room of a traditional hive, with plenty of space for the colony to grow. Bees will travel up to five km (about three miles) to collect nectar, making even the most unpromising gardens able to support viable colonies and produce honey.

Experts say that with care and access to local sources of nectar it is possible to collect more than 20kg of honey from a hive in a good year, in return for about an hour's attention a week from the owner.

The hive comes with legs to keep the bees out of the coldest air in winter when they are hibernating; the legs raise the hive to a comfortable height for the beekeeper and makes inspecting the hive much easier.

It has a mesh floor that provides year-round ventilation helping the bees to maintain a hygienic home. The mesh floor assists the beekeeper in controlling the varroa mite by allowing fallen mites to drop away from the hive.

Last year more than 30 per cent of honeybees died from disease, mainly from varroa. This year the percentage looks still to be in the high teens or lower 20s and which is not sustainable. It is estimated the honeybee, through pollination and honey, contributes 150 million pounds annually to the UK economy.

Omlet co-founder James Tuthill said: "With the help of urban gardeners, bees can have access to a wonderfully diverse source of plants, resulting in fantastically flavoursome honey."