Picture a honey bee, buzzing around an apple tree outside your window on a warm morning next spring. The worker bee then explores a sunflower in your neighbor’s garden and flies a few blocks to the neighborhood community garden, where she collects pollen and nectar from flowering plants. A child watches in wonder as the bee dives into a pumpkin blossom and emerges covered in bright yellow powder.
In a few weeks, the community gardeners enjoy salads of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from vines pollinated by the bee. At Thanksgiving, they have the bee to thank for their home-grown mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.
Back at the hive, tucked behind a hedge in a neighbor’s yard, the nectar has been turned into honey. There is plenty, so the beekeeper lifts out a honeycomb. She puts some in her tea and shares a jar with a neighbor, who bakes it into a whole grain muffin that her child eats after school instead of junk food.
As winter approaches, you bite into a crisp apple from your tree. The sunflower’s seeds fortify a bird for the journey south. Both foods formed only because that honey bee pollinated them.
Multiply this journey by millions of bees, and we see the many small but important effects this tiny insect has on human life and the environment in the city. The honey bee is called a “keystone species” because its actions ripple through the ecosystem in so many crucial ways.
But the honey bee is in danger. In the last few years, many beekeepers have lost over half their bees each season. This epidemic, called colony collapse disorder, is believed to have many causes, including viruses and parasites.
But most experts agree that the stresses of industrial agriculture have weakened the bees” ability to cope with these threats.
Small-scale local beekeeping allows bees to live in more natural and healthy conditions. With the variety of flowering plants in its gardens and parks, the urban environment may be even better for bees than rural farming areas, which are often dominated by monoculture and heavy pesticide use. Every new naturally managed backyard hive protects a colony of honey bees and improves the species” chances for survival.
In return, the hive provides abundant bee-pollinated produce and good local honey. Just as more people are gardening and shopping at farmers markets for environmental and health reasons, beekeeping lets people take control of a small part of their food supply.
But Denver’s zoning ordinances currently prohibit beekeeping. Fortunately, Councilwoman Peggy Lehmann is sponsoring a bill to allow Denver residents to keep bees in their backyards. The city council will consider the proposal on Monday evening.
This change would be good for the whole community. New beekeepers would have honey to share with friends and neighbors. Honey is a healthier sweetener than refined sugar or high-fructose corn syrup because it is a whole food, full of micronutrients from the flowers it comes from. For gardeners, more pollinators would mean higher yields of flowering plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, beans, pumpkins, and zucchini. (And if you think higher zucchini yields are the last thing we need, you haven’t tried my wife’s zucchini bread.)
Some people are concerned about stings. But honey bees are not aggressive. They sting only to protect their colony or when they feel threatened, and almost never while out foraging. Most stings attributed to bees are actually caused by wasps. The proposed ordinance contains safeguards to minimize accidental human-bee encounters and protect the small percentage of people who have a dangerous allergy to bee stings. Under the proposal, hives must be in the rear 1/3 of the lot, at least 5 feet from the side and rear property lines, with a fence or foliage barrier to make the bees fly up to a height of at least 6 feet before leaving the property.
Many major cities allow beekeeping, including Boston, Dallas, and San Francisco. Chicago’s city hall has beehives on its roof. Ensuring that Denver has a healthy population of honey bees is an important part of the effort to improve environmental quality and sustainability in the city. For Denver residents, passage of the ordinance will create an excellent opportunity to made a difference on a crucial environmental issue and get a sweet reward in return. The city council should vote to allow backyard beekeeping on November 17.
John Hershey (john@rakishwit.com) is a community gardener and a member of the board of Denver Urban Gardens (www.dug.org), the nonprofit organization that supports over 80 community gardens in the city.
