OF COURSE, there is one little problem: choosing to keep bees in an urban area may be perceived by your neighbors as a sign that says i want to hurt your children. Many people seem to think that bees are vicious hunters, hanging around picnics and such, just waiting to sting an unsuspecting human.

Bee-lovers beg to differ. " Bees don’t go to picnics — those are yellow jackets, which are wasps, and meat eaters, " Mangion says. " The honeybee is vegetarian. It only eats nectar from flowers. " They do sting, but only when they feel their young or the hive is in danger. Yet most of us still fear them, and those fears can have the weight of law: in New York City, keeping bees is prohibited under a law banning animals that are " wild, ferocious, fierce, dangerous or naturally inclined to do harm. "

Massachusetts has no such prohibitions. " Every bee regulation that we have is designed to enhance beekeeping, " says Al Carl, apiary inspector for Massachusetts (believe it or not, every state has one). Still, he explains, bees can be classified as a public nuisance: " That’s up to the local authorities to interpret. "

Even when the authorities don’t get involved, angry neighbors can bring a beekeeping experiment to a halt. Just ask Stringer, who said goodbye to his bees after a neighbor complained that they were preventing his mother from leaving the house. " The bees had been there all summer long, " says Stringer. He had been keeping bees for five months at that point. " They complained the day after I harvested the honey, " he says. " I don’t think they even knew the bees were there [before then]. " He moved his bees to the other side of his house for a few weeks, but he ended up moving them permanently to a friend’s farm in the country.

No wonder beekeepers resort to stealth techniques. Both Carl and Mangion agree that keeping hives hidden is the best bet. Carl recommends painting hives brown or dark green. Mangion suggests placing a tomato plant in front of the hive. And two Cambridge beekeepers were so nervous about their neighbors’ reactions that they declined to be interviewed for this article.

Mangion hopes that education can make the cities and suburbs a more welcoming world for bees and their human fans. The key, she says, is to start with young people — like her neighbor’s daughter, who at the age of four wandered over to the hives, removed the lid, and emerged unscathed.

But a quicker solution might be a little sweet talk. If neighbors complain, she advises, " give them a jar of honey and a pamphlet on why bees are good for the environment. "