Thanks for the good news Erik.  Beehives in backyards, that really is encouraging.

Hmmm, maybe someone could alert jab's neighbors to get some africanized bees, hehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Here in the City of St. Louis, I've seen chickens in some yards, and heard them in others. Not entirely common at all, but they are there nonetheless. Oh, and there is a lady in Clayton (near 'burb, wealthy and a downtown with many high-rise buildings) who keeps chickens in her back yard. She sells the eggs and she also raises honey-bees, and of course, their tasty product. Along with bee pollen and beeswax candles, many formed from German molds. Really interesting person. Belongs to a world that really doesn't exist anymore.

The mellotron is your friend.

Please keep in mind having urban backyard beehives is a life-threatening proposal to your neighbors who may, like myself, have severe allergic reactions to certain species of bee stings.  While I understand the huge importance of bee pollination, I would propose that a variance of some sort should be required before an urban beehive could be installed to ensure that neighbors in the immediate vicinity would not be put under undue risk of death due to the much higher proportion of the little guys who would be present than if a hive was not intentionally installed.

This needs work.  As suggested by OrganicJewelry, allergic reaction to bee stings is an issue worth considering (of course, bees do not automatically sting, willy-nilly; they only sting if provoked in defense of their home).  And in general, "living with bees" is ethically deficient if all that means is a happy uncomplicated way of exploiting them for human purposes.

(Thanks, Amazing, for bringing this to my attention.)

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I hadn't considered that angle.  I suppose that would be a problem.  A lot of emergency bee sting injectors wouldhave to be distributed to people who are allergic.

It's more symbiotic with bees, they have a lot of success working with us, just like dogs.  You can have the right feeling for your animal allies.  My chicken sings every morning, before she gets out of her warm nest to have a bite to eat in the winter air.

Bees are wonderful buzzing and humming around you when you open the hive.  No stings, no smoke, no bee hat, just do it on a sunny afternoon, they are very happy then, too busy to get angry.

Of course I haven't tried it with africanized bees.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

My dear friend Erik wrote (a long time ago, but I am giving myself a snow day today, and so have a few precious minutes to look in on animal-related matters in Grist):

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All domesticated animals and plants have allowed themselves to be domesticated.
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Way lacking in nuance, kid.  For starters, plants, and non-human animals, are not the sort of creatures that can "allow themselves" to do anything.  Every one of them is a slave.

To be sure, many of them are comfortable in their servitude, and even incapable of living on their own, such as Little White Dog, curled up on a pile of soft towels just a few feet from where I sit.

And many species are much more populous, i.e. there are many more individual members, thanks to cooperation with human beings.

But that is hardly the same as "success," nor is it the result of anything like free choice.  Consider the fate just of chickens, to say nothing of all the other domesticated vertebrates: there are billions of them, sure, but does that count as success, when those billions are consigned to horribly miserable lives and frightful deaths?

Anyway, back to the interesting business of bees:

Animal-rights absolutists, a very boring lot, however fine their intentions, MUST be set apart from those of us who are animal-rights ethicists, who consider these matters with an appreciation of philosophy, history and science.  "Hands off that honey, Honey!  {You bitch!}," say the former, unhesitatingly, unblinkingly and unabashedly.  "Ummm ... let me look this up in this reference book ... ," say I.

We all agree (I think) that all vertebrates are sentient creatures who therefore merit ethical regard (fish being the most overlooked).  But it gets interesting when we enter into the various taxa of "invertebrates" (that feckless term!).  How sorry are we supposed to feel at the destruction of a jellyfish, or a sea star?  Well, perhaps not very much, but at least let us pause to think about life, about organisms, and about how easily systems of molecules can fail.

Molluscs are one taxon worth examining carefully.  Being a big fan of cephalopods (octopuses, squids, cuttlefish), and almost as big a fan of gastropods (snails, slugs), I have no problem saying they are sentient, and merit ethical regard.  But bivalves (clams, oysters) are another matter, "The Walrus and the Carpenter" never having been a favorite poem of mine.  And yet, should I give those poor little oysters, tripping along in their little shoes, another chance?

Arthropods (including Insects, including Bees) are another fascinating taxon, being closely related to us vertebrates, and exhibiting behavior (fear-motivated, pain-motivated) very similar to our own.

On page 179 of her excellent, painful-to-read book "Thanking the Monkey," Karen Dawn writes:

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Our taste for bee regurgitations is bad news for bees, about a billion of whom have traditionally been exterminated every year by the honey industry.  [There is a footnote here, referencing "Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights," by Steven M. Wise.]  At the end of the season it is not worthwhile for the farmers to winterize the hives -- it is often considered easier to burn them, and start again next season.  THAT is how we thank the honey-makers.
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So, as Evita sings: Where do we go from here?  This isn't where we intended to be ...

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.