By Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Tyler Waugh
A Mount Pearl resident was unsuccessful in a last-ditch plea to city council to keep two beehives he’s had since COVID.
The resident spoke to council at its October 13 regular meeting in support of his application for two beehives at 15 Kean Place, something that council has discretionary power over under the city’s development regulations.
“I first got into it about post-COVID, somewhere around 2021 and I’ve had two hives in my backyard pretty well since then,” he said. “I’ve had many of my neighbours come up and express their appreciation for it, for the pollination that they do. I’ve had children come over and I’ve shown them the bees and everything.”
He said that one of his hives did swarm this past summer, which resulted in a complaint. He said somebody found themselves surrounded by bees while walking down the road.
“And it is scary, I grant you that,” he said. “You’ll note, however, she was not actually stung. When bees swarm, they don’t actually have a hive to defend so they are not generally aggressive but they are scary.”
The resident explained to council that he captured the swarm and addressed the issue, adding that when a hive is preparing to swarm it prepares a queen cell by laying an egg that becomes the queen. When the queen leaves it takes some of the worker bees, which is what happened in the summer swarming incident.
“I went in and destroyed the rest of the queen cells so that didn’t continue happening for the rest of the summer.”
Councillor Isabelle Fry said she lives close by and when the swarm happened, she had three different people contact her, so she ventured out and saw the swarm on the tree on the front lawn of a neighbouring property and could see how it would be terrifying.
“We have to look out for the entire neighbourhood,” Fry said, adding she was sympathetic to the applicant and understands the important role bees play.
Deputy Mayor Jim Locke said the application triggered the usual public briefing session under development regulations and neighbours within a 150-metre radius were notified. The briefing session was held on September 24 and though three people registered, none of them attended.
There were two written submissions received – one in support of the application and one opposed. The expression of opposition centred around the appropriateness of hives in a residential area, and outlined a swarming incident from this past summer, something the applicant addressed during his presentation to council.
Councillors said there needs to be more education of the general public about bee behaviour, and one of the points of contention was related to the property’s ‘living’ vertical fence that includes flowers.
“The nature of this particular property is unique in that there’s open access and there’s a congregation of bees in the area,” said Locke. “Was this particular application in this particular neighbourhood, with the details around the vertical fence or the living fence, was it appropriate for this particular neighbourhood? After a discussion council decided that they didn’t deem this particular application suitable for this neighbourhood and as such the motion we bring forth now is to reject or deny this particular application.”
Council voted to reject the application.