concrete jungle honeybees doing just fine

….With the recent unexplained disappearance of 25 percent of the U.S. honeybee population, interest in beekeeping is at an all-time high among city dwellers, said Peter Sinton, president of the San Francisco Beekeepers' Association. Membership in the bee club has nearly doubled to 133 in the last three years, ever since apiaries began reporting cases of colony collapse disorder, shocking hive desertions that today threaten the pollination of $14 billion worth of the nation's fruit and vegetable crops. "It has caused a lot of people to worry about the bees, and think that maybe they could become a beekeeper," Sinton said. "In the ecologically oriented Bay Area, the idea strikes a nice chord."It turns out bees get by just fine in a concrete jungle. They typically forage for pollen in a 3-mile radius of the hive, and can thrive on the city's buffet of imported ornamental plants on balconies and rooftops and the dozens of community gardens that dot the city.…

…read it all in today's San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. beekeepers reap a sweet harvest