<H. Sweet> wrote:
 
>
> The city laws should protect the residents. The bees were a threat, the
> result could have been legal action. I think the no-bee law is a good law.
> If you have bees and your neighbors don't care...great. But if they do
> protest it's our responcibility to respect their concerns. City animal laws
> only keep things from getting out of hand. There's no bee police here, just
> neighbors that don't need another thing to worry about.
>
 
I couldn't agree less.  Bees maintained properly are rarely if ever a problem
for neighbors (unless they can see them - then they are the root cause of any
and all problems).  We have had a city ordinance specifically allowing
keeping of honeybees in Anchorage.  We got it enacted about 10 or 12 years
ago.  We have yet to have a problem.
 
Without legal bees all you have is feral colonies (they will be back, you
know) and possibly they will be AHB.  Who will provide support for problems
then?  The government?  They will do great and it will only cost ten times
what it should.
 
Any city in the path of AHB should not only allow, but encourage controlled
beekeeping.  It is the first line of defense.  To ban bees is asking for
future trouble.
 
--
"Test everything.  Hold on to the good."  (1 Thessalonians 5:21)
 
Tom Elliott
Eagle River, Alaska
U.S.A.
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