Local beekeepers stung by neighbors' opposition

Nicole Perullo has three kids, so you might think the last thing she wants in her back yard is a bee hive.

But, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone, bees, she has.

"It's about the environment, you know?" she remarked. "I'm trying to teach my children about how important honeybees are to our food supply."

Bees pollinate the blossoms that produce about a-third of the food we eat, Blackstone points out.

But, in her town just north of San Francisco, Corte Madera, it's illegal to keep a bee hive.

The woman who lives next door filed a complaint over Perullo's bees.

"How does she think she gets fruit and flowers?" Perullo wonders. "I mean, there's bees out there!"

So now, Perullo is on a mission to convince her city council that urban beekeeping is part of the solution for an insect that needs help.

For almost five years, a mystery ailment called Colony Collapse Disorder has killed bees in unprecedented numbers, Blackstone notes. Commercial beekeepers have lost about a-third of their hives every year.

But, across the country, bees have been getting help from city dwellers, Blackstone observes. Michelle Obama has them in her White House garden.

At farmers' markets in New York City, Andrew Cote sells honey from his rooftop hives.

"Each hive," he says, "produces about 100 pounds of honey, on average, per year."

And, Blackstone says, when it comes to keeping beehives in cities, it would be hard to get more urban than the ones he showed "Early Show" viewers on what used to be a freeway on-ramp in downtown San Francisco. It was, as he said, buzzing.

Karen Peteros, who helps tend the hives, says, "One of the big challenges for urban beekeeping, or even suburban beekeeping, anywhere in the country, is always fear."

Last year, it seems, fear drove someone to spray insecticide into the hives, killing more bees than Peteros could count.

"It was very heartbreaking," she says. "Tens of thousands, probably 100,000, maybe 200,000 bees" killed.

But that loss spurred new support for beehives on the block.

"In this neighborhood, at least" says Peteros, "a lot of people appreciate that bees are here and make our city a nicer place to live."

At the Randall Museum in San Francisco, Nancy Ellis teaches about honey bees by providing a view into a hive. She also has good advice for new beekeepers with nervous neighbors.

"You need to alert your neighbors that you have bees, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to give them a jar of honey. They're immediately friendly to your pursuit!"

After all, asks Blackstone, what could be sweeter than honey from the hive next door?