At the start of this venture, I decided to let my neighbors on each side of my house know that I was keeping 2 colonys of bees. Well, one moved but not because of the bees. In fact, I never got around to telling him. And the new neighbor doesn't know either....[sigh]
Well, I harvest 3 super frames and got about 3 quarts of honey. I took a pint to the neighbor that I had asked, and he seemed grateful for the honey. In fact, he seemed a bit more concerned about his spraying herbicide than I was, around his side of the fence near the bees. I told him spot spraying was probably ok, but major spraying to let me know.
I also took another pint to another neighbor down the street who I had heard wasn't too keen on bees....but the look on his face and the good will that a pint of honey produces is well worth the effort to break down barriers of 'bee prejudice".... :)
I had bees in many locations in town and my standard policy was to not tell them until that fall. I'd take them some honey and some would be surprised I had bees. Some had already noticed. But mostlyt he ones the notice know something about bees. There's a lot less fear when the bees have already been there for a season then the anticipation of something they don't understand. When the first they know of it the bees have already been there for almost a year there isn't any anticipation. It's already happened.