Naperville council wants more info before changing beekeeping rules

The Naperville City Council wants more information on best practices for beekeeping before making changes to its current laws.

Council members established local beekeeping regulations in 2016, but revisited the topic at their Tuesday meeting after resident Darrell Hanson broached the subject in June when complaining about his neighbors’ beehives.

Hanson, 58, said he has lived at his Columbia Street home, located between Porter and Prairie avenues, since 2007. It is only in the last year that he has found himself unable to enjoy his residence due to the three beehives his next-door neighbor keeps, he told the council at Tuesday’s meeting.

“He’s in a full protective suit when he’s dealing with his hives, and five feet on the other side of our fence, I’m swatting at bees nonstop, and my family’s running from them. My grandchildren can’t even come over and play on the driveway,” Hanson told the Naperville Sun Monday, noting that he is not the only neighbor to complain about the situation.

He contacted the city and the Illinois Department of Agriculture regarding the issue but found no resolution, he said, prompting him to take the matter to the council.

City staff recommended a number of amendments to Naperville’s current beekeeping ordinance, including changing the setback of hives from a property line from five feet to 15 feet, requiring that flight paths into the hive remain within the owner’s lot, providing an on-site water source for the bees and establishing rules for fencing, neighbor notice and signage.

For fencing, staff said that beekeepers should have a minimum 6-foot-tall, solid fence no more than five feet from the hive entrance. The fence should extend at least two feet on either side of the hive.

But the proposed ordinance changes did not sit well with local beekeepers or Hanson.

Bees can travel to two to three miles from their hives when foraging and will “cross property lines regardless of setbacks or fences,” said Chong Yi, of Yi’s Bees and Trees and a Naperville resident. “Increasing the required setback from five feet to 15 feet may sound reasonable, but it will not meaningfully change where the bees fly or forage.”

Hanson agreed, adding that for him the issue is not necessarily the setback but allowing bee hives on lots in neighborhoods near the downtown area.

“I don’t have any objections to people keeping the bees maybe in southern Naperville where there’s bigger lots, but not in the downtown. … Beekeeping belongs on a farm or in rural lots, not in a high-density residential downtown neighborhood,” he said.

Robert Fieseler, a former councilman and beekeeper, took issue with the fencing requirement. He said that mature vegetation and other natural barriers should be considered as acceptable alternatives to constructing a 6-foot fly-away fence since vegetation produces the same result and screens hives more effectively.

After hearing from local beekeepers and Hanson, the council was hesitant to pursue any changes to regulations without first learning more about best practices for beekeeping and gathering more feedback from all the parties involved.

“I’m not ready to do anything right now on this. … I don’t want to support an ordinance that we find out doesn’t have any impact and also takes a hobby away from people,” Councilman Josh McBroom said.

Councilman Ian Holzhauer was also hesitant to make changes, saying that perhaps the ordinance should include provisions requiring consent from neighbors or allowing bushes as barriers.

Councilwoman Mary Gibson said she would rather not change the ordinance as a way to solve the issue since the rules have been in place for so long and caused very few problems.

In the decade since the ordinance was established, there have only been three beekeeping complaints of which she was aware, Naperville’s Transportation, Engineering and Development Director Jennifer Louden said.

Mayor Scott Wehrli said he supported seeking more feedback, noting that the city’s current ordinance lacks the best management practices that the Illinois State Beekeepers Association identifies. He also said that millions of people in the U.S. have severe allergic reactions to bee stings.

“When you have that type of allergy, you avoid at all costs being with bees,” Wehrli said. “If my neighbor was doing what I saw in the Hanson situation, where there’s very dramatic photos and videos of the bees crossing over into their property near the windows, I can tell you that I probably would not be living next door anymore.”

Staff will collect more feedback and information on best practices associated with beekeeping management before bringing the item back to a future council meeting.