Anybody who raises chickens in the city automatically becomes Someone to Know, if not That Person. But it’s nothing next to tending 70,000 bees in your shared backyard while harvesting 50 pounds of honey. Do this, and the city is yours; you will never not have someone willing to listen to your life story, while buying you all the drinks that go with that. Amazingly, urban beekeeping is totally aboveboard stuff — it is lawful and unregulated in San Francisco, making it the weird-thing-in-your-backyard du jour of the new, postchicken era. Literally, you can just stick a hive back there. What about your balcony? We think so! But please, take a class first — the bees will know if you didn’t, and they will be waiting, quietly, for their opportunity. Fortunately, the Urban Beekeeping Series has Paul Koski from the San Francisco Beekeepers Association providing hands-on, mesh-headgear instruction — there’s a hive — in all aspects of the Life, from buying equipment to extracting honey. Unfortunately, the first two classes have passed, so you’ll need to get up to speed for today’s “Hive Management.” Please do so: You can never know enough about beekeeping.
Sat., June 11, 1 p.m., 2011
