Beekeeping: Neighbor nuisance or protected hobby?
When St. Charles officials decided to regulate beekeeping nine months ago, it seemed like a necessary evil to resolve a dispute among neighbors on the 1600 block of South Tyler Street.
But when the first set of proposed rules came out, aldermen learned they'd stepped into a hornets' nest.
“I was inundated the past few weeks by people who don't want this,” Alderman Steve Gaugel said at a council meeting this week. “I haven't received one message in favor of putting this in place.”
City staff members have two weeks to devise a plan that eliminates the sting of regulation while easing fears about out-of-control hives.
The people who want new beekeeping rules live behind Paul and Heidi Napolitano. Last summer, bees from the Napolitanos' two hives swarmed. That created a visual that set off alarms for neighbors fearful of bee stings.
Shortly after, reports of actual stings came from those neighbors. They turned to their aldermen in the First Ward for a solution.
“The bees have got to go,” Gary La Gesse said to aldermen. “This has dragged on for a year. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves for letting people get stung.”
Within that comment is the essence of the problem city officials face. On one hand, they don't want to create rules making beekeeping an impossible hobby. But how do you protect people afraid of bee stings when bees must leave their hives and travel on to private property for the pollination activity necessary for their own survival?
Aldermen Gaugel and Maureen Lewis said requiring fencing, forcing beekeepers to buy a city license and mandating at least one-half acre of land goes too far for them to support.
“I don't understand what a 6-foot fence is going to do to stop a bee if there's a tasty flower on the other side,” Gaugel said.
Lewis agreed.
“I'm ready to vote ‘no,'” she said. “I don't know that we should start regulating people's personal hobbies.”
No change means the Napolitano family will still have angry neighbors. And Aldermen Dan Stellato and Ron Silkaitis will still have enraged constituents.
“We had an issue,” Stellato said. “We need to address it. I think everybody is happy if the neighbors have someone to turn to if there is a complaint. Right now we have neighbors who feel they have no one to turn to.”
The compromise plan involves addressing problematic bees/beekeepers under the city's nuisance ordinance. Aldermen gave city staff members two weeks to figure out enforceable standards.
The key is determining beekeeping activity amounting to a “chronic nuisance.” That's the designation where the city could take action to remove the nuisance.
The city staff said getting a call from a resident saying they were stung by a bee would not be enough to act on. In the normal nuisance process, there must be three complaints in a six-month period to get the ball rolling.
The owner of the property involving the nuisance first gets a warning letter from the city. If there is no improvement, the police department has a meeting to resolve the issue. If that doesn't work, a legal process begins where maximum fines for a nuisance can hit $750.
“I am not anti-beekeeping, but I am very much pro-good neighbor,” Alderman Rita Payleitner said. “I think that's what this comes down to. We live in town. There is more expectations of us as neighbors. We need to do what we can to assure good neighbors.”
Aldermen will renew discussion on beekeeping at their May 22 meeting.