At Least They’re Not Dogs That Shoot Bees At You
By Jocelyn Geboy in Miscellaneous on May 12, 2006 10:04PM
Chicagoist loves bees. They do great group dances, they pollinate flowers, and they make honey. Honey alone has inspired some of our favorite things, from beautiful Van Morrison songs to cute little bears whose bodies we used to mutilate for a little altered state of our own, if you know what we mean.
We're also not allergic to bee stings, so we are totally down with bees and don't have the atavistic fear that seems to clutch a lot of people. So is Gabriel Jacobs, a 14-year old who lives in Evanston, and grooves on animals that most people don't normally have as pets. He got interested in bees after his mom brought home a book on them, and he started researching what they were all about. Gabriel took over a year, built a hive and ordered a small cluster of bees (12,000) from California.
But the neighbors found out. They don't want those bees in their backyard(s)! They're freaked. They ratted Gabriel out and now the neighborhood and city officials are all debating what to do, since bees are not mentioned in the Evanston code anywhere. The neighbors who don't want them there are citing the possibility of the bees swarming, which occasionally happens when there are too many bees in a colony and some of them group up and decide to find another crib. Bee experts note that they are chill when they're doing this, and aren't some mad pack of stinging bees like we have been conditioned to see in cartoons.
But if the unfounded swarming fear wasn't bad enough, the one neighbor said, "Also, my neighbor's hobby shouldn't presuppose the use of my property without my consent." Yeah. That pollen from your flowers was really going to net you a ton of cash this year, ey buddy?
For what it's worth, the Trib article noted that the city of Chicago actually encourages the practice of beekeeping with several hundred hives in the city, and two on the rooftop of City Hall. So, it's hard to say what's going to happen for Gabriel, but we just hope they let him keep his bees. Bees aren't looking to sting; when they do, their lower half gets ripped out and they die. It's hard out there for a bee.
Image via everythingabout.net