Breakdown of Zonder het pak houd ik liever geen bijen.
ik
I
geen
no / not any
liever
rather (prefer)
zonder
without
Questions & Answers about Zonder het pak houd ik liever geen bijen.
Why is it houd ik instead of ik houd?
Because the sentence starts with the phrase Zonder het pak (Without the suit). In Dutch, when you put anything other than the subject at the very beginning of a main clause, the verb and the subject swap places. This rule is known as inversion.
How exactly does liever geen translate to "prefer not to"?
The word liever translates to "rather" or "preferably". Because you are negating the noun bijen (bees), you must use geen (no/none). Literally, the sentence says "Without the suit, I keep rather no bees," which is the natural Dutch way to say you prefer not to do an action involving an unspecified noun.
Could I say liever niet instead of liever geen in this sentence?
You cannot use niet here because of the noun bijen. You use geen to negate an indefinite noun (a noun without "the", "this", or "my"). If you left out the bees completely, you could use niet, for example: Ik doe het liever niet (I prefer not to do it). But since you are specifying "bees", you must negate the noun itself with geen bijen.
I learned that houden means "to love". Is that what it means here?