Just a qick note to let everyone know, what Pasenda, CA
thinks of Beekeeping.  This is a story by reporter Rick
Cole.
 
 Rick Cole Regional Column for Sunday, October 5
 
This column is a departure from my usual focus on economics,
transportation and
public policy issues, but took me into a fascinating subject
and local
government's bureaucratic response.
 
>LOCAL BUREAUCRATS FIGHT WAR ON BEES
>By Rick Cole
>
>Pesticides, pollution and parasites have wiped out 90% of the nation's
>honeybees.  Some local bureaucrats are trying to wipe out the rest.
>
>Like most flowers and plants in our gardens, honeybees aren't native to the
>Southland.  Yet as nature's most prolific and efficient pollinators, they're
>a vital part of urban ecology.  We depend on them for both flowering gardens
>and backyard vegetables.  The nationwide honeybee shortage threatens more
>than our urban landscape, it also jeopardizes commercial crops that provide
>one-third of our diet.  Because of this, says Auburn University Professor
>James Tew, "honeybees should not be killed except when absolutely necessary."
>
>But in the City of Pasadena, honeybees are officially outlawed, according to
>Mel Lim of the city's health department.  "Our policy is to eradicate the
>bees," Lim declares. "They're a threat to public health."
>
>Why is the City of Roses fighting a war against honeybees?  Perhaps you've
>heard that bees can sting.  This is not news to most of us.  Nor a threat to
>most of us.  But out of a  thousand people, one or two are violently allergic
>to bee stings and risk death from shock if not immediately treated.
> Therefore, Lim declares, honeybees are deemed to be "dangerous insects."
>
>In practice, Lim says, city staff won't go after "a few bees in the garden."
> But beehives, domestic or wild, are strictly forbidden, even on private
>property.  Last month, city crews and trucks assisted professional beekeepers
>in removing a beehive from high up in one of the majestic street trees in my
>neighborhood.  The operation and clean-up, which took two days, must have
>cost the city several hundred dollars.  Ironically, the beehive had gone
>unnoticed by most neighbors for more than a year until the disturbance
>unleashed a buzz of bewildered bees.  No stings were reported.
>
>An estimated fifty thousand bees were carted off.  The stragglers were
>exterminated.  But while local gardens may suffer significantly, public
>health will not be enhanced at all.  As any bureaucrat who reads their kid's
>World Book would discover, besides honeybees, there are 20,000 other species
>of bees, bumblebees, yellow jackets, hornets and wasps.  None make honey, but
>they all have stingers.
>
>Lim defends the city's honeybee eradication policy, however, citing the
>potential future threat from "Africanized" honeybees, the so-called "killer
>bees" of tabloid newspaper fame.  The "African" honeybee is slightly larger
>than the "European" honeybee we're used to, although its sting is no more
>powerful.  Their fierce reputation comes from a higher sensitivity to
>disturbances to their hives.  Once aroused, hundreds may pursue a human or
>pet.
>
>African honeybees were accidentally released in this hemisphere in the late
>Fifties in Brazil.  They've been slowly spreading northward, crossbreeding
>with local European honeybees despite forty years of massive international
>efforts to halt their advance.  "All our efforts have probably just slowed
>the pace," admits Dr. Mark Shelton, Dean of the College of Agriculture at Cal
>Poly San Luis Obispo.  "Africanized" honeybees are now established in
>Arizona, Texas and New Mexico and recently entered California.
>
>Bee experts scoff at Lim's excuse that wiping out European honeybee colonies
>will slow the entry of Africanized bees.  Unlike their more vulnerable
>European cousins, the African honeybees seem maddeningly invulnerable.  Dr.
>Mussen notes that in Tucson, five years after the Africanized bees first
>arrived, 27 commercial bee removal services have sprung up and "there is no
>shortage of bees there."  The threat from Africanized honeybees is real, but
>exaggerated.  Nationwide, insect bites from everything from hornets to fire
>ants produce fewer than 100 fatalities a year.  So far, no American has died
>from an attack by the "killer bees."  The danger, when they eventually
>establish themselves locally, will rank a little lower than the risk of being
>struck by lightning.
>
>Out of touch with scientific reality, Pasadena's war on honeybees is also out
>of step with Los Angeles County policy.  Mike Pearson, who worked fifteen
>years as the bee inspector for the County Agricultural Commission, says "bees
>are quite beneficial to plant communities as well as humans."  While he
>allows that "unmanaged colonies can pose a problem," Pearson insists "we need
>to provide space for honeybees."  The county, he says, encourages beekeeping
>to promote agriculture.
>
>In a city that prides itself on both its lush flora and its scientific
>prowess, will the bureaucrats continue their expensive and irrational war on
>honeybees?  Of course.  Bees don't vote.  And voters?  Bureaucrats think they
>don't care.