It had \u201crecently come to the attention of the City\u201d that the Bards were allegedly violating local law, the notice from the local government said in April. The bees, the letter added, must go immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first time I told the bees, I heard the vibration change like that,\u201d said Nicholas, who noted that his girls were \u201cfeeling calm\u201d the morning of his interview with the Washington Post. \u201cI was upset. They were upset. Everyone was upset.\u201d<\/p>\n
The complaint that arrived in a plain business envelope has spiralled into a months-long saga that is poised to change the law for all hobby beekeepers within Santa Rosa city limits. <\/p>\n
Getting there, though, took a dedicated team that traversed zoning code, land-use laws, bureaucracy, lengthy email threads and public support.<\/p>\n
Hundreds inundated city hall with a rallying cry: Let Nicholas keep his bees.<\/p>\n
The letter from the city of Santa Rosa accused the Bards of running an illegal home occupation \u2013 commercial beekeeping. The family later discovered it was prompted by an anonymous complaint.<\/p>\n
After receiving the notice, Nicholas\u2019 mother, Sara Bard, quickly dialled the city, but it was close to the weekend and no one picked up. <\/p>\n
The family researched the zoning code and figured it was all a mistake. They had never made a single cent off the bees.<\/p>\n
At most, they have produced one frame of blackberry-and-wildflower honey that won Nicholas \u201cbest in show\u201d at the Sonoma County Fair this year. He also enjoyed eating some of that honey with a piece of French bread.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought, we\u2019ll go down first thing and explain before it becomes a big thing,\u201d said Nicholas\u2019 father, Zachary Bard. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we were going to say, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s just set up a time. You can come out, Nicholas will be there, and he\u2019ll talk to you about the bees.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicholas, then 7, reads to the first beehive he received as part of his 4-H project. Photo \/ Sara Bard<\/p>\n
Eventually, the Bards reached the inspection officer, who they said was sympathetic to their situation and flagged the issue to his supervisor. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am afraid it turns out,\u201d the worker wrote in an email afterward, that not only did the home occupation notice still stand, but the Bards were now facing an additional violation: maintenance of insects.<\/p>\n
That nuisance code applies to wasps, hornets and other insects that are maintained \u201cin such a manner as to pose a threat, disturbance, danger or menace to any person or property of another\u201d. <\/p>\n
Wild bees are also included, but Nicholas countered that several species of wild bees are protected under the Endangered Species Act, \u201cso it\u2019s actually illegal for Santa Rosa to have that against them\u201d.<\/p>\n
His bees, which he believes to be Italian bees, are also docile and nice, Nicholas said. If they landed on someone, they probably mistook the person for a flower, he noted.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, both statutes combined prohibit \u201call beekeeping within city limits\u201d, the worker\u2019s email said. <\/p>\n
If the family wanted to submit a zoning text amendment to keep their bees, Santa Rosa required a one-time fee of US$20,789, plus additional costs for the planning commission and the city council.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really have US$20,000 going around in a piggy bank waiting to be broken into for my bees,\u201d Nicholas said. \u201cI just don\u2019t have that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frantic and confronted with a looming deadline to remove the beehive, the family turned to Cheryl Koeller, president of the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association, and Nicholas\u2019 4-H adviser, Ettamarie Peterson.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe minute Sara called me, I said we\u2019ve got to do something to defend a child\u2019s right to learn about something in a responsible manner,\u201d recalled Peterson, a well-known beekeeper in the area who gave Nicholas his first swarm. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as I hung up the phone, I called Santa Rosa because I wasn\u2019t going to let anybody walk over one of my 4-H beekeepers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koeller also began inquiring, because the law didn\u2019t just threaten Nicholas\u2019 bees \u2013 it put all small-scale beekeepers in Santa Rosa at risk of losing their hives. <\/p>\n
The issue stretched into the summer as both sides pored over the fine print of zoning and land use. In the meantime, Nicholas obtained permission from the California Rare Fruit Growers to send emails to their members asking for their support.<\/p>\n
Momentum began to shift in favour of the bees once the juggernaut of public opinion became evident.<\/p>\n
By late August, Santa Rosa informed Koeller that the city would move forward with drafting a beekeeping ordinance. <\/p>\n
To the vexation of some supporters, the ordinance will take six to eight months to draft, followed by a city council vote, so results won\u2019t come until the end of 2026. But Nicholas can keep his bees while that process plays out.<\/p>\n
The city of Santa Rosa acknowledged the situation on social media in late October. It was all a misunderstanding, Santa Rosa Mayor Mark Stapp said in an interview.<\/p>\n
The city was not aware that the zoning code was written so narrowly as to prevent all beekeeping, he said. Nicholas\u2019 case, he added, was the \u201cfirst time in anybody\u2019s memory that anyone in the city of Santa Rosa has faced any kind of issue for beekeeping\u201d. <\/p>\n
He said the lengthy process is because of the amount of resources and research the city will dedicate towards writing a nuanced beekeeping ordinance.<\/p>\n
Stapp said he is frequently stopped in public and asked about Nicholas\u2019 bees. He emphasised that the city is in full support of young people getting involved with agriculture and expects the new beekeeping ordinance to be approved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no significant anti-beekeeping constituency in the city of Santa Rosa,\u201d Stapp said.<\/p>\n
The adults involved in the situation view the experience as a valuable lesson in civics and Government for Nicholas, whom they praised as a determined child on the verge of changing the law.<\/p>\n
The 10-year-old, though, has a different take.<\/p>\n
\u201cBees are way more efficient than a city council,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It had \u201crecently come to the attention of the City\u201d that the Bards were allegedly violating local law,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[95552,82647,46300,138,179,12974,2511,13838,692,293,95551,78,702,8307,40484,13840,111,139,24743,69,12508,42569,1886,223,61,10939,1316],"class_list":["post-140810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bard","tag-beekeeper","tag-broke","tag-business","tag-california","tag-change","tag-child","tag-girls","tag-he","tag-his","tag-hives","tag-in","tag-it","tag-law","tag-learned","tag-like","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nicholas","tag-nz","tag-quite","tag-rallied","tag-support","tag-the","tag-to","tag-understands","tag-when"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}