New proposal could regulate Boston beekeeping

The Boston Metropolis Council will hear a proposal Wednesday to amend the town zoning code to formally authorize and management the preserving of honeybees.

The modification, filed by Metropolis Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune, outlines a number of laws for Boston beekeepers. These embody setting a most distance between hives and public sidewalks, standardizing hive sizes, and outlining steps beekeepers must take to maintain bees from flying into home windows or doorways of close by buildings.

Different adjustments embody banning hives in residential entrance yards, and setting a most variety of hives on a given property.

Animal Management would police any violations, starting with a written warning and adopted by fines.

Beekeeping in Boston

Whereas this proposal helps regulate apiculture in Boston, beekeeping is definitely not unlawful. In reality, it’s a rising pattern amongst hobbyists and native companies alike. Some attribute the rise in beekeeping to the COVID-19 pandemic — WBZ dubbed the pollinators “nature’s important employees” final 12 months, estimating that there are near 700 honey bee colonies in Boston as of June 2021.

“Residents and companies in Boston are already internet hosting bee hives on their rooftops and backyards as native curiosity in beekeeping has solely elevated through the pandemic,” Louijeune wrote within the proposal.

Golf equipment such because the Boston Space Beekeepers Affiliation act as an area hub for self-proclaimed “beeks” (for the uninitiated, bee geeks). Their Fb group has near 800 members and provides beekeeping classes, displays, and workshops.

Beekeeping can also be fashionable with college students, with each Boston College and Tufts providing beekeeping alternatives on campus.

Commercially, firms like The Greatest Bees Firm, a Boston-based beekeeping service began by a Tufts graduate, contribute to the rise in city farming. The corporate installs hives, cares for bees, and harvests honey for budding dwelling beekeepers. Since 2009, Greatest Bees has expanded to twenty different metro places throughout the nation. 

Why beekeeping?

A number of Boston inns, such because the InterContinental Boston and the Lenox Lodge, have rooftop apiaries. It’s nice for company environmental initiatives, and for international agriculture as a complete — bee pollination impacts about $15 billion price of crops in the USA alone. 

Honey bees present the pollination for over 85 totally different crops and contribute to 35% of world meals manufacturing. In city cities, bees contribute to biodiversity by supporting and strengthening plant and tree development by way of pollination. Bees are thought of an indicator species, which means that they’re important for gauging the well being of ecosystems.

Some metropolitan beekeepers imagine bees really fare higher in cities than within the countryside — city beekeeping maintains the species’ survival amongst threats of colony collapse, and supplies bees with much less aggressive entry to vitamin.

Past environmental advantages, native beekeepers get the perk of recent honey.

What’s subsequent

As for the Metropolis Council’s proposal, beekeepers shouldn’t make adjustments simply but.

For the adjustments to enter impact, they have to go a council committee, a public listening to, and a full council determination. The Metropolis Council meets each Wednesday at 12 p.m.