Best as I can tell, every man, woman and child in Europe keeps bees. - The Bee Blog
I continue to find it odd when people generalize across all of the U.S. or all of Europe. I cannot keep track of the five million people in Atlanta, or even the one thousand people at my high school, much less three-hundred million people in a superstate.
Regarding the above, it does not match life in Lausanne. I lived there for two years and did not meet a single bee keeper. I never saw a bee hive, and the selection of honey at the stores looked about the same as at Kroger, only written in Foreign. I did see a fair number of farm animals around even within the cities, but I guess that's not really the same thing as bees.
Obviously I need to get over myself. The Bee Blog is fun, and so is this article. It just sticks with me somehow when someone says "Europeans sure do keep a lot of bees" when they could have simply said "You wouldn't believe how many bee people we ran into at the hot springs yesterday. Two!! I know!"
Mmmmmmm, honey.