Firstly if anyone is thinking of keeping bees join your local group.
My local group have beginners classes for £35. I can not rember what it is to join but you are covered by insurance. My local group meets once a month and this month (today the 28th of June 2009) we had a talk and a practical demo by out local Bee inspector.
There are several varieties of bees.
Italian
and British Black
the Italian are yellow and as the name suggests the British are .....
I do not have bees but they are going to be arriving very very soon.
30m away is great, but on an allotment they could be on the plot next door. Literally feet away.
****Edit*** I mucked up Ice's quote.
I meant to say.....
The guys on my course (bee) that had bees on (or getting them) on an allotment, had to build a six foot fence a round there bee hive. This is because once a bee takes off it will fly horizontally -ish till it meets a object. At six feet up they is not going to a problem for you. Today at bee club one other person was stung apart from me and it was because the club was demoing a shook swarm and other things. This is not normal. Plus we where very close and it took 49 mins into the demo before the first person got stung and I was less that 8 inches from the bee hive entrance trying to get a good shot of the bees. (big style pushing my luck.)
But this was the picture I got. It shows the British black and the Italian bee.
We as humans (well all animals have this instinct) are programmed to be afraid of bees. It is natural. But they do not want to hurt anyone.