Mike Kilen

mkilen@dmreg.com

Clare Heinrich became fascinated by honeybees after hearing a presentation at the 2015 Iowa State Fair. She earned a scholarship from the Iowa Honey Producers Association to take three months of classes to learn more.

“I know they are important pollinators, and they are disappearing,” said Heinrich, who plans to study environmental science in college. “I wanted to know if I could do something.”

The Dowling Catholic High School senior got a shipment of honeybees in April and set up a hive on the side of her parents’ home in Urbandale, where she studied the bees’ rituals of service to the colony and honey production. She even won three ribbons at this year’s state fair for her honey and hive frames.

But Urbandale officials say bees are considered livestock and thus prohibited to keep on residential property. The Heinrichs must remove the hives by the end of the month or face a fine of $1,000 the first day and $750 for every day thereafter.

It’s a confusing problem for cities across Iowa as more Iowans have become interested in keeping bees. In Polk County, there are 57 registered beekeeping sites. Yet city codes vary from city to city, even in neighboring suburbs. In Des Moines and West Des Moines, for example, beekeeping is allowed, but not in Urbandale and Waukee.

Julia McGuire did a study of 97 Iowa cities to create a list for beelaws.org and found 36 allow beekeeping, 11 have outlawed it and most of the rest have nothing written in their codes.

“Bees are doing good, whether you know it or not,” said McGuire, who formed Des Moines Backyard Beekeepers, a Facebook group of hobbyists. “They are making things beautiful.”

OTHER BEE STORIES

Honeybees are the superstars of the pollinator world, and their story of decline recently because of pesticide use and loss of habitat has created a groundswell of interest. Bees gather and distribute pollen that plants need and are rewarded by the plants with nectar. Many native bees are vital to the process, but honeybees can be managed by people.

“Plants create more pollen and nectar when bees are around,” Heinrich said. “They know the bees are there.”

Some neighbors have told her that their flowers and vegetables are more robust since Heinrich got the box of 10,000 bees in April and carefully fed them sugar water until they were ready to forage up to three miles around the neighborhood.

She became thrilled with learning about the hives and the various jobs of nurse bees, guard bees and those who forage. So did her father, Kurt Heinrich, a Dowling theology teacher, and a father-daughter project emerged. They watched the bees communicate on the best ways into the hive and other behavior patterns.

“It’s Bee TV out here,” Kurt Heinrich said while standing near the busy hive as the sun set on a recent night and bees flew across the slanting light.

“It’s relaxing,” Clare added.

They said they wanted to be up-front with their new hobby, so in the spring they checked city codes and didn’t see any mention of bees. Kurt Heinrich talked to city officials in June, and city officials say they told him they were prohibited without knowing he already had them. When Heinrich’s neighbor reported the hive, the city sent a notice to have them removed. In a letter to the Heinrichs in August, the city cited its code, which doesn’t specifically mention bees but reads that no livestock could be raised on residential property. Bees were considered livestock, falling under the phrase “not limited to” before its listing of pigs, cattle, goats, fowl and others.

To the average person, that may sound strange, said Urbandale city Development Director Steven Franklin, but many cities define bees as livestock. The main reason for the bee prohibition, and the reason the city has fielded a handful of prior bee complaints, Franklin said, is neighbors’ concerns over swarms on their property that create a fear for the safety of pets or children.

“A lot of people, if they get stung, they think it’s by bees, but it is wasps,” Kurt Heinrich said. “Unless you know bees are back here, most people would never know.”

McGuire understands that neighbors should be allowed to enjoy their property without bees in their bird baths or buzzing around their heads in the garden, and that the city might have to incur costs for registration and inspections of beekeepers. But she said the good they do for the plant community should allow beekeeping, providing for avenues of complaints if hives become troublesome.

“It shouldn’t be an issue,” she said. “It’s your property.”

The situation left the Heinrichs in a conundrum. It’s late in the season to move bees for the winter, but they are still searching for volunteers who could take the hive, hopefully nearby, Clare says, “so I can watch them.”

Urbandale should be a leader in environmental issues, the Heinrichs added, especially to overcome all the tended, grass lawns that make poor habitat for bees. They hope that by pressing the issue they can urge city officials to take another look at the codes and help others to be allowed to keep bees. City officials aren’t ruling out taking a further look at the code regarding bees in the future.

“We are an agrarian state. C’mon, we should take a lead,” Kurt Heinrich said. “This is another way to be good stewards. I hate to get all biblical, but we should be a land of milk and honey.”

His wife, Mary, said it might be part of God’s plan.

“Just not in our yard,” Clare added.

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