What's the Buzz?

Urban beekeeping is taking flight as swarms of honeybees alight on capitals like London and Paris

Steve J. Benbow

Fortnum and Masons beekeeper Steve Benbow tends to his beehives near Tower Bridge in the City of London.

You wouldn't expect a guy wearing muddy boots and worn moleskin pants to saunter past the formally dressed footmen at London's Fortnum & Mason, the famous Piccadilly food emporium that's a favorite of the British royals. But Steve Benbow, 38, is not your average fancy-food consumer. He is one of many urban apiarists, or beekeepers, in the British capital, and although he usually enters Fortnum's by the staff door and heads to the roof, where he oversees four beehives, some days he can't resist stopping on the grand ground floor for the thrill of seeing his name on one of the...

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