City Council to take up beehive rules

Beekeepers plea for help for honeybees

The new law to be discussed would limit Lorain beekeepers to three hives per parcel of land.

Lorain City Council should consider ways to help humans help honeybees, and not hinder hives in the city, local beekeepers said.

On Oct. 9, Lorain City Council’s Police, Fire and Legislative Committee will discuss a new ordinance that would regulate animals in the city.

The meeting will start at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 200 W. Erie Ave.

The new law would limit Lorain beekeepers to three hives per parcel of land.

It also would require bee hives to be at least 50 feet away from other buildings.

But limiting honeybees in Lorain could have unintended effects, said Denzil St. Clair, a 47year beekeeper who has become one of northern Ohio’s experts on bees.

St. Clair and his wife, Sheila, operate The Beekeepers’ Shop of Queen Right Colonies Ltd. in Spencer on the southern border of Lorain County.

He has served as the Lorain County bee inspector and has seen hives in Lorain, and is a founding member of the Greater Cleveland Beekeepers Association.

“I’m not at all adverse to regulation because I think it is somewhat necessary when you live in a residential area,” St. Clair said.

But the trouble comes when communities make regulations without input from people doing the activity and people that would be regulated, he said.

Honeybees can sting people, but potential benefits of the insects far outweighs potential trouble, St. Clair said.

Beekeepers who start helping hives often end up teaching people about honeybees and other insects, said Audrey Gargas, secretary of the Lorain County Beekeepers Association.

That is true especially when people see swarms of bees or other bugs.

“Nine times out of 10, it’s yellow jackets they’re complaining about,” Gargas said.

If Lorain enacts rules for bee hives, it does nothing to regulate feral hives or the hornets, wasps, mosquitos, flies and other pests that sting or bite people, St. Clair said.

Bees are critical pollinators for plants, said John Schrenk of Lorain, a state licensed beekeeper who sent an email letter to Council.

“As a city, we should be making efforts of conservation rather than creating rules to restrict beekeeping,” Schrenk said.

He suggested Lorain allow the state to regulate bee colonies through existing state rules.

“We need more bees, not less,” Schrenk said. St. Clair agreed. “When you go to regulating one specific insect that does 90 percent of the pollination, you’re going to affect everybody in the city of Lorain that has a garden, everybody that has a fruit tree,” he said.

Schrenk noted beekeepers have lost whole hives due to disease and poisoning by pesticides and lawn fertilizers.

In 2015, Ohio’s 20,000 bee colonies ranked 25th among the 50 states for total number.

But Ohio was the top state for bee loss when 48 percent of the colonies died off, St. Clair said.

“That goes to the challenges and the difficulties of keeping a colony alive today,” he said. “We need to work with beekeepers instead of opposing them.”

Lorain City Council will meet at 6 p.m.

The Building and Lands Committee will discuss an ordinance concurring with the recommendation of the Lorain Planning Commission to approve the request for a zoning change for parcels around 2265 and 2413 East Ave., 411 E. 25th St. or 2415 Caroline Ave.

Council then will have a special meeting to consider that ordinance.

The Police, Fire and Legislative Committee meeting will follow that meeting.