A new ordinance would fight declining bee populations by allowing urban residents to keep bees in their backyards.
According to Curbed LA, The City of Los Angeles is considering permitting residents to keep beehives, and the City Council has drafted a proposal that would allow hobbyist beekeepers to keep hives in their backyards.
Although the practice hasn’t been allowed in residential zones, a large number of residents are keeping beehives anyway. Many of them are motivated by concern regarding recently declining honeybee populations.
Jose Huizar, a Los Angeles Councilman, reports he and his staff have been working on the ordinance for the past year, collaborating with bee experts with the aim of ensuring that the practice is regulated properly.
In the Los Angeles Times, Huizar claimed, “We want to enable this increasingly popular activity even while we preserve the rights of the city to address any complaints about poorly maintained hives”.
The Times further reported that scientists and farmers have issued a warning that the decline in bee populations, paired with California’s ongoing severe drought is a massive threat to agriculture across the state.
Bearing in mind the concerns over the declining population of bees, other US cities have also started working to correct the situation.
An annual survey by researchers at the Honey Bee Lab at the University of Maryland, reveals that beekeepers reported the loss of around 50% of honeybee colonies from April 2012 to April 2013.
The cause of the decline remains unknown, but hypotheses include a number of factors, including new parasites.