Council also agrees to shorten work hours in city residential zones

Benicia City Council has started the process whereby property owners will be allowed to keep honeybee hives legally within city limits.

The Council also has taken a step toward shortening permissible hours of outdoor construction in or near neighborhoods.

The panel approved the introduction of the two changes to the Benicia Municipal Code, but the amendments each must undergo a second vote at a future meeting.

Gretchen Burgess, who helped craft the current version of the city’s animal control ordinance as it pertains to bees, has been trying to get the Council to overturn the portion that forbids beekeeping in Benicia except in open space zones.

That provision was made part of the ordinance when the city used as a template the ordinance of Riverside, which had been dealing with more aggressive Africanized bees.

A swarm of the more aggressive African honeybees escaped and have gradually been moving north, reaching the United States in 1985. But the Bay Area’s chilly and dry climate isn’t hospitable to those bees, which never migrated this far north.

Burgess addressed fears about stings head-on Tuesday. “My son is deathly afraid of bees,” she said, explaining that he and other community members need to be educated about the benefits of honeybees.

Benicia Community Gardens members also have advocated for beekeeping, pointing out the importance of bees as pollinators to successful gardens and orchards. Members of the Mount Diablo Beekeepers Association attended Tuesday’s meeting as well, including Judy Weatherly, vice president of member education, who said she feared bees until some persistent bumblebees moved onto her porch. After a week of trying to get them removed, she said, “I was enthralled.”

Weatherly assured the Council that few people — about 3 percent of the population — are allergic to bee stings.

Bees and other pollinators, not just honeybees, travel about seven miles and can make thousands of trips looking for food, she said. “You will have bees, whether you allow them,” she said.

The Council unanimously agreed to introduce the amendment, which would require a $50 permit for those who want to keep bees and would restrict the number of hives and where they can be placed on a parcel.

Those living on a lot up to a quarter-acre will be allowed to keep up to three colonies; on a quarter- to a half-acre, five colonies; and those between a half- and full acre can have seven hives. Those living on an acre or more can keep up to 10 colonies an acre.

According to the ordinance, hives may not be placed within 10 feet of rear or side property lines, or within 40 feet of a front property line. Apiaries will need to be registered with the Solano County Agriculture Commissioner, and keepers will be required to maintain their hives in good order and provide bees with water. Apiaries will be screened by barriers at least six feet high.

In other business, the Council introduced a measure to limit outdoor construction in or near residential areas and in downtown mixed-use districts to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekends.

Like the beekeeping measure, the municipal code amendment requires a second vote of the Council at a future meeting.

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