We have talked about keeping chickens for eggs in your backyard:

How to keep chickens in your backyard and have fresh eggs every day

And worms:

How to start your own worm farm -or- how to compost your kitchen waste with worms

But what about honeybees? The reason this question came to mind is that I built a little garden in the Brain backyard, and I planted cantaloupes and pumpkins (plus some other stuff, but Trixie dug almost all of it up). Yes, I know it is ridiculously late in the season to be planting things like cantaloupe, given that frost will arrive in 3 or 4 weeks. But so what? The plants are still pretty, as you can see here:

In that photo you can see a problem – there are no pollinating insects. There should be honey bees and bumblebees around all those flowers, and there are none.

We used to live on a farm in Zebulon, NC, and we used to have bee hives. Honeybees are absolutely amazing in every way. So it has me wondering if I can put a bee hive in my backyard. Searching on Google, there are a lot of people having this same thought, even in the heart of New York City and Washington DC:

It’s not that hard to get a hive started. You buy the hive and then the bees, either from a local beekeeper or by mail (yes, you can order bees by mail and the post office will deliver them). In the following video you can see a man in his backyard with his first hive and his first package of bees that he installs in the hive:

I need to go investigate local rules and see how much trouble I could get in if I tried this.

See also this excellent video on how bees and hives work:

More info:
- How Bees Work
- Pollen, Insects and You: Things to Know Before You Die

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