Bees
Posted by Paul on 24 Feb 2009 at 07:20 am | Tagged as: Food and Wine, Home and Garden, Media
Re the link to the new beekeeping site:
You might find this interesting — David Yassky, an up-and-coming Brooklyn city councillor, has taken up the crusade to legalize urban beekeeping. Apparently there are quite a few underground (or more precisely rooftop) apiculturists operating in the shadows of the city. Two links below — the second is to a local TV news story:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/32/6/32_6_bm_beekeepers.html
http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/politics/93978/the-big-apple-hides-many-secret-beehives/Default.aspx?ap=1&Flash
P.S. I tried to post this comment on the site itself, but that was apparently beyond my technical capabilities…
It’s not exactly the case that you can’t keep bees in the city, just that the distance requirements are hard to obey. There are a dozen or so hives at the Brick Works, all quite legal.
How the Royal York’s hives were licenced, I’m not sure, unless a sympathetic inspector decided to interpret the necessary distances as vertical.
(Ontario) Bees Act:
Location of hives
19. (1) No person shall place hives or leave hives containing bees within 30 metres of a property line separating the land on which the hives are placed or left from land occupied as a dwelling or used for a community center, public park or other place of public assembly or recreation. 2002, c. 17, Sched. F, Table.
Location near highway
(2) No person shall place hives or leave hives containing bees within 10 metres of a highway. 2002, c. 17, Sched. F, Table.
Obviously written by urban/suburbanites, and subject to interpretation by the bees inspectors, since most old-time 100-acre farms hereabouts are occupied by a dwelling etc. etc.