Beekeeping in Florida

Emily Lake doesn't choose to admit it: She when would run if a bee got too near whenever she had been in the woman garden.

A beekeeping class last year switched her around. Today she keeps a field packed with bees in her front yard in Goodland and waxes enthusiastically towards natural great things about bees to whoever will pay attention.

"There cannot be anything better than bees around, " Lake said.

That sentiment is the reason why backyard beekeepers are humming about a legislation Gov. Rick Scott signed previously this thirty days. It voids town limitations on in which beekeepers can set-up store. Instead, the law provides Florida apiary inspectors the work of writing new guidelines after getting input from local governing bodies. The law switches into effect July 1.

Obviously, bee love is not universal. Despite being respected pollinators that boost backyard landscapes and fruit-tree production, bees' stingers have almost all of the attention. Fear that area issues would shut them down has sent many yard beekeepers underground.

The new legislation eliminates the threat of regional bee authorities implementing irrational area beekeeping prohibitions, said Don Murray, president associated with the Beekeepers Association of Southwest Florida.

"The people just who compose these regulations do not understand bees and merely particular give it a blanket no-go, " Murray said.

East Naples Civic Association President Chris Hagan stated beekeeping is unsuitable for a domestic community and shouldn't be permitted without, about, a general public hearing procedure and vote by a town council or county commission.

"it will be like allowing you to definitely have a chicken coop in their yard, " Hagan said.

The law doesn't mean beekeepers can claim only any place, said David Westervelt, acting assistant chief of apiary inspections for Florida division of Agriculture and customer providers.

Broadly speaking, Southwest Florida zoning laws allow beekeeping just on farming land, making the urban centers of Naples and Marco Island as well as the wide-open rooms of Golden Gate Estates off-limits for beekeeping hobbyists.

Inspectors recognize that you can find bad places to place a bee hive, like close to a playground in which an errant ball could upend a hive or in which a bee package could possibly be mistaken as a location to sit, he stated.

"I won't state we will restrict some areas, but we will have to consider it on a case-by-case basis, " Westervelt said.