Like flies stuck in honey, proposals to permit beekeeping within St. Peter haven't flown far in years past. In 2017, the St. Peter City Council rejected a proposal to allow residents to keep bees in city limits, and in 2021, a similar ordinance met the same fate.
But on Monday, July 22, the St. Peter City Council changed its tune on the issue. On a 5-2 majority, with Mayor Shanon Nowell and Councilor Ben Ranft casting dissenting votes, the City Council passed a new ordinance that will allow residents to keep bees on their property with a permit at the beginning of next year.
Local beekeepers will be allowed to have no more than two hives in their backyard according to the permit requirements, and must keep them a minimum of 25 feet away from any neighboring building and seven feet back from any property line.
All hives must be located behind a flyway barrier, which forces bees to fly upwards when leaving the hive — reducing the likelihood that they may come into contact with or sting people. A fence, dense vegetation, or combination of materials can serve an appropriate barrier when constructed at a minimum height of six feet tall and 10 feet wide.
Only those who have received a beekeeping certification from the University of Minnesota or a similar accredited institution will be allowed to apply for a permit.
In addition, beekeepers will be required to alert their neighbors that they have hives on their property by displaying a 12-by-18-inch sign on their property displaying the words, "Bees Hives Present Caution” and a picture of a honeybee.
"We know three are folks within our community that may be allergic so an opportunity for them to have notice that there are bees in this place have been discussed by this council and previous councils," said City Administrator Todd Prafke.
Those looking to get their hives up and running right away next year will likely be able to apply for a permit by October, according to city staff. Prafke recommended the ordinance's effects be delayed to January, 2025 to give the city time to prepare application materials and add permit fees to the city fee schedule.
"It’s very unlikely that somebody who is keeping bees today would move their hives during this time of year. In addition, this is not really a great time of year to start a new hive and so Jan. 1 seems appropriate," said Prafke. "It also gives us time to develop some materials for applications that are necessary.”
Sustained interest in beekeeping from both city residents and council members has led the issue to come before the City Council several times since 2017, but past ordinances have failed over concerns that it could bring in hordes of honeybees that would compete for food with St. Peter's native pollinators.
Councilor Keri Johnson previously voted against the 2021 beekeeping ordinance with a five-person majority on those grounds. But Johnson came out in favor of the new proposal after discussing the issue with local residents and concluding that the ordinance wouldn't bring too many honeybees for the local environment to sustain.
"Number one, I believe there that there are going to be very few residents interested in obtaining a permit since beekeeping requires very significant effort," said Johnson. "Number two, an increasing number of lawns are being converted into pollinator frienldly yards which boosts the availability of food for both honey and native bees."
While she voiced her support for the ordinance, Johnson also asked city staff to share the number of permits being approved with the City Council in the event the city were to receive a huge influx of bees.
Councilor Brad DeVos, who had been a steadfast supporter of the beekeeping ordinance in 2021, believed the ordinance had enough requirements for permit-seekers to prevent the honeybee population in St. Peter from getting out of hand.
“It really is a volume issue. A lot of cities that have done this had few restrictions. few requirements in place which led to an overabundance of bee hives," said DeVos. "I think we’ve put more requirements in place, even limiting [not only] beehives to a yard but requiring people to pass a course, requiring inspection.”
Councilor Dustin Sharstrom said he previously had concerns about the impacts of beekeeping on native pollinators, but since meeting the city's permit requirements would be cost-prohibitive for a lot of people, he didn't expect the city to have much more than a handful of domestic hives.
“If cities like Minneapolis and Madison can manage this, I feel like maybe we put a little too much thought into this and we should allow residents to do this,” said Sharstrom.
However, Councilor Ben Ranft raised concerns that even just a handful of beekeeping operations could threaten St. Peter's native pollinator population when each hive hosts thousands of individual honeybees.
“I love pollinators; I love having pollinator gardens; I love that we think about that. But if you’ve got more pollinators, and you don’t have enough food for the pollinators, then you start to have an issue," said Ranft. "We don’t have an issue with the pollinators that we have, but a single hive starts off at 10,000 bees. That’s 10,000 mouths to feed.”
Mayor Shanon Nowell, who voted down the 2021 beekeeping ordinance when she was on the council, maintained her opposition to the measure, citing conclusions from the University of Minnesota Bee Lab , which finds that honey bees can coexist with native bee populations when there are an abundance of flowers, but can cause problems for local species when food is scarce. When feeding off the same flowers as native bees, honey bees can also spread disease to native populations.
”Honeybees are not native to North America, and there is no risk of them going extinct. Beekeeping is not needed to help sustain honeybee populations," Nowell said in opposition to the measure. "In contrast, our native pollinators I believe are under critical threat.“
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