Urban beekeeping is not that new. I started keeping bees about 10 years ago, and it was a topic of conversation among beekeepers then. Famously (among beekeepers) the White House had some hives installed at that time, and our local Bee Club hosted the White House Beekeeper for a presentation.
So far as what the bees source their honey from, it is true that they can make use of anything sugary. But they can also be quite picky. When we had some display hives at the local fair, I noted yellow-jackets swarming over every half-empty soda can in sight. But the honeybees, they stuck to the organic lemonade stand! Cities, with their parks, and abundance fo flowers and flowering bushes and trees can often be a more concentrated source of real nectar than some rural areas, where wildflowers have been wiped out in favor of acres and acres of monoculture corn.
