Bethel Metz shows off her bee pod at her Port Washington home. Even though none of her neighbors has a problem with the hive, it has become an issue with the city attorney. Credit: Michael Sears

Somebody in Port Washington has a bee in his bonnet over Bethel Metz's bee hive.

City Attorney Eric Eberhardt wrote a letter to Bethel and her husband, Michael, citing a news article about her beekeeping hobby as evidence of misdeed and ordered her to cease it immediately - no later than this Monday.

"If you fail to comply, the city will pursue legal action to enforce its ordinances," he wrote Oct. 7, warning her that each day of violation after Monday would constitute a separate offense.

I'd like to tell him to buzz off. Fortunately, I think the city is about to do that instead.

Like a growing number of communities - including Milwaukee - Port Washington could soon have a law explicitly allowing beekeeping. The Plan Commission on Thursday directed staff to draw up rules to that effect after Metz, other pro-bee bodies and a beekeeping expert with whom she studied made their case.

As for the looming bee-day deadline?

"We're going to talk to the city attorney and have him back off on that," City Administrator Mark Grams said Friday.

Metz's predicament, as unsettling as it was for her sleep cycle, has done the community a service. Not only did it prompt the rational policy now in the pipeline, which will need Common Council approval. It also is giving members of the community the chance to learn something about their environment.

In fact, she welcomes anyone to stop by her house at 139 E. Van Buren St. in Port Washington between 1 and 4 p.m. Sunday and have a look and ask questions - which is apparently more than city officials ever bothered doing.

According to bee expert Charlie Koenen of Mequon, bees are vital to pollination of crops and our food supply. Thanks to the devastation of something called colony collapse disorder, as much as half the bee pollinator populations are dying off year after year.

"This is unsustainable," said Koenen, who teaches beekeeping at the Urban Ecology Center and soon at Boerner Botanical Gardens.

So people like Metz are doing their part, with urban beekeeping.

Koenen likes to call it "beekeeping for the bees."

Metz is not keeping them for their honey. That's all for them, their own food supply. She's raising them in a "beepod" made by Koenen - a trough-like system conducive to making bees happy little workers as they pollinate the plants around them.

Most people are more familiar with the white boxlike hive towers with removable sheets of honeycombs. Metz said her bees, which don't have to work so hard filling our honey pots, are much more docile. Unlike yellow jackets that harass you if you're holding an open soda can, her bees pretty much mind their own business.

Right now they're getting ready for winter. One fascinating tidbit Metz shared is that all the boy bees - the drones - get kicked out of the nest to freeze about now because they're only for reproduction, which is unnecessary during their winter hibernation. The girls do all the work. So her peak hive population was about 100,000 bees, but it's dwindling to 50,000 to 75,000.

If she had to move the hive now in this seasonal transition, they'd all die, she said.

Metz said she's talked to neighbors about the bees, and they've not objected. The beepod is 20 to 25 feet from the city sidewalk and it's about 6 feet from the edge of the smallish, double lot. It stands next to a retaining wall topped with tall plantings that acts as a fence, requiring the bees to lift up before they fly off as recommended by experts.

"I'm doing it mainly as a hobby, and also for the environment," she said. It keeps her centered, too.

"I'm a very busy person," said the 32-year-old mother of a boy, 7, and girl, 10. She tends vegetable and flower gardens, works part time and is studying to be a lay minister as well.

"Beekeeping requires you to move slowly, intentionally. It forces me to stop and slow down, and that has carried through to many aspects of my life. It's become more than a hobby. It's a passion."

The bee brouhaha caught Metz by surprise. She said she contacted the city administrator before she even took her beekeeper class and was told nothing prohibited the practice as long as it was not for commercial purposes.

Grams says he doesn't recall the conversation. But he also said the city's ordinance doesn't say anything about beekeeping so "I think if I did say something, that's probably how she would interpret it."

Turns out, the zoning code has to expressly allow it, and bees don't get a mention.

Then again, Grams notes, the zoning ordinance doesn't mention that play sets and gardens are allowed, either, but they're everywhere.

After an article appeared in an online publication, someone called City Hall and expressed concern, Grams said. That's when the city stepped in.

Now, maybe it's going to step up.

Call Laurel Walker at (262) 650-3183 or email lwalker@journalsentinel.com