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<br />More Twin Cities suburbs are <br />growing sweet on bees <br />Foodies and environmentalists are adding hives. <br />By Kelly Smith Star Tribune <br /> <br />JANUARY 28, 2014 — 1:29PM <br /> <br /> <br />More bees are moving to the ’burbs. <br />As buzz builds over the popular hobby and the dramatic worldwide die-off of bees, more than two doz- <br />en metro-area cities, including Minnetonka, Bloomington and Stillwater, are allowing back-yard <br />beekeeping. <br />On Tuesday, Eden Prairie is expected to be the latest city to approve it. And in Chanhassen, <br />beekeeping classes are filling up, like one next month that’s sold out to nearly 200 people interested in <br />starting the hobby. <br />“The number of people doing it now is surprising,” said Gary Reuter, who helps teach classes at <br />the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and run the University of Minnesota’s Bee Lab. “People want to <br />do their part to help [bees], and some of it is the back-to-nature thinking.” <br />Scientists say a worldwide phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder is affecting bees, which are <br />dying at a rate of 35 percent a year. That news, along with the movement to produce food locally, has <br />increased interest in beekeeping. <br />Minneapolis and St. Paul were among the first cities here to allow it. Now rooftops from Minneapolis <br />City Hall to downtown hotels host hives.