Mighty,
Can you tell me how much honey I'll need to make a gallon of mead?
Too bad about your city's bee regs. If your neighbors are all cool with you keeping bees you might consider setting up a clandestine hive anyhow. Or you could try to put together a petition. It took a while, but that worked in Cleveland on the maintenance of livestock including chickens and goats with some limitations. Beehives, up to 4, we're already permitted.
I use 3 pounds for a gallon of mead. Comes out to about a quart of honey, I just pick up 2 pints of honey. I see beechercreature already posted a link to a good recipe. If you want some more info, here is a site that has a lot of information:
http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/index.htmI have never followed any of the recipes on the site but they seem pretty legit. I believe he even had a recipe using stuff you would find around the house like baker's yeast (I'm skeptical though..). The author also has some really cool youtube videos about different stages in the mead brewing process which are fun to watch.
As far as yeast goes, this batch I just opened which was awesome, I used Lavin EC-1118 champagne yeast (Here is a link so you can see, though I found it at my LBS):
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/winemaking/wine-ingredients/wine-yeast/lalvin-champagne-ec-1118.html It produced a mead which was a nice balance between dry and sweet. The honey flavor was there but almost as an aftertaste. It actually tasted like a nice wine with a "funky flavor in the background that you can not put your finger on but like" (Of course, honey will affect your flavor as well). Very smooth, I really wish I had done a larger batch. I plan to start a 5 gallon batch here after I get my holiday brewing done and have a free carboy
In mead making recipes, you see reference to both yeast energizer and yeast nutrients. As an FYI, you can get products which have both combined (fermaid-K is what I use, mainly because that is what my LBS carries).
If you are more of a bookworm like me, I have one book on mead that I have read: "The Compleat Meadmaker" by Ken Schramm. Its a good book, I started with it. There are others as well, I just have not gotten around to them yet.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Compleat-Meadmaker-Production-Award-winning/dp/0937381802/