> There are just too many beekeepers in London: 

It would be more accurate to say that London lacks sufficient forage for
bees, and the legislated requirement that London Plame trees be planted and
maintained seems to be the primary barrier to supporting a more reasonable
number of hives for a city of 8 million people.  

Remember, if your environment cannot even support a few hundred beehives,
how can it possibly be healthy for 8 million humans?
(The tee-shirt version is "I can't live where bees can't")

> annual honey surplus was 12lbs; it is now down to 9lbs per colony 
> and they are now feeding bees all the year round.

Is that 12 lbs and 9 lbs, or 121 lbs and 91 lbs?  Regardless, the answer is
to plant trees that bloom, and provide nectar and pollen without creating a
mess on the streets.  (Think linden!)  City bees make their living off trees
much more than off flowerbeds.

A single tree provides a massive amount of equivalent "acreage" in terms of
blooms, for example:

Area = 4 pi r^2
Volume = 4/3 pi r^3

So a tree foliage radius of 10 feet, and a bloom density of 2 inches from
each other in all directions is equal to slightly over half an acre of
blooms. 
						
Surface Area (sq ft)		1256.64	
Volume (cubic feet)		4188.79	
Surface Equivalent acres	0.03	
Volume Equivalent acres	0.58	

A single tree with a 30-foot radius ball of foliage offers the equivalent of
nearly 2 acres of blooms, if the tree has blooms evenly distributed within
its interior.

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