Honey bees on Cornwall Street in Vancouver

Walking on Cornwall Street, in Vancouver, someone had an enormous display of lavender growing by the sidewalk. I tried for years, with little success, to grow lavender, and here in Vancouver you see it growing in abundance and without any special care as far as I can see. The curious thing about this particular lavender is that it was full of honey bees, they were having a great time collecting nectar and pollen. Based on the number of bees, which isn't evident in the photographs, there is probably a local beekeeper to whom these bees belong, or they are from a hive located in someone's attic, or a tree not far away. At any rate it's possible someone will have quite a lovely harvest of this honey.

Many cities are now allowing some urban agriculture, trying to blend in rural and city occupations. I am of two minds on this. In many English villages or towns, keeping bees, gardening in an allottment, or keeping pigeons, is fairly common. However, I wouldn't want chickens next door to where I live, we hear of diseases that come from birds in too close proximity to humans. I certainly wouldn't want pigs or sheep next door, avoiding the noise and smell and dirt of livestock is one advantage to living in the city. We've worked hard in western society at achieving a level of sanitation that has resulted in standards of health never seen before. However, it seems to be fashionable to be in favour of keeping domesticated animals in people's backyards today, other than dogs and cats, and this strikes me as  rather silly affectation, or ignorance on the part of, some middle class people. I still remember when many people had a dog that ate table scraps (God forbid!), which is a dog's natural diet, and you opened the front door in the morning and let the dog out for the day, he'd return about 5 p.m. and you didn't know where he'd been. Our dog, Buddy, visited Willingdon, our grade school one day and ran through the halls with Mr. Pitcairn, the principal, running after him. I remember keeping a low profile that day. But, despite this about people's dogs, no one kept chickens or livestock in their backyard. Isn't that right, Veeto?