CUYAHOGA FALLS: A 17th Street neighborhood feud over a beekeeper’s backyard hobby may have escalated this weekend, with someone attempting to destroy one of the hives.
Saturday morning, the Gallagher family noticed hundreds of dead honeybees at the bottom of one of their colonies that smelled of insect killer spray.
A police report was filed and tiny carcasses have been frozen so they can be tested for toxins by the Ohio Department of Agriculture, but the latest incident spotlights a debate that surfaced before City Council this summer when several of the Gallaghers’ neighbors complained.
The city’s zoning code only allows beekeeping on lots zoned rural residential or in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Planning Director Fred Guerra said. The Gallaghers live in a high-density residential neighborhood, where standard lots average less than a quarter of an acre.
Still, bee fans appear to have won over city officials, who are poised to pass legislation that would make “urban beekeeping” legal with the help of some neighbor-friendly guidelines. A Sept. 6 meeting has been scheduled so the public can hear the recommendations of Guerra’s staff and offer feedback.
But it appears someone didn’t want to wait.
“My dad is the nicest person ever,” daughter Julie Root said, and having his hives vandalized “breaks his heart.”
Beekeeper falls ill
The 17th Street beekeeeper, Bob Gallagher, was hospitalized after the incident on Saturday, complaining of dizziness. Root, a nurse, said it may just be a coincidence and she isn’t ready to link the two incidents together.
In his absence Monday, Root, her mother, Teresa Gallagher, and Mary Sobczak of the Summit County Beekeepers Association showed off her father’s hives and talked about his relatively new passion for beekeeping, which has been keeping friends and family in fresh honey for the past five years.
Teresa Gallagher said her husband’s interest started after they planted pumpkins for the grandchildren one year, only to have none of the plants bear fruit. They were told that no honeybees had pollinated the plants, which inspired them to read more about the mysterious mass die-off of honeybees across the country and its effect on crops.
Scientists have blamed “colony collapse disorder” on commercial pesticides, and a federal report in 2014 said the United States had lost more than half of the honeybee population — significant because honeybees pollinate about $15 billion worth of agricultural products every year.
In 2011, the retired Gallagher attended classes held by the Summit County Beekeepers Association and bought his first hive. The bees and their all-important queen were shipped from California and he learned how to care for them and collect their honey.
He later added two more colonies, each ranging from 20,000 bees to upwards of 100,000 during the peak part of the season.
Last year, Gallagher went out to tend his hives — made of stackable boxes — and found one of the stacks toppled to the ground. Some suspected a human hand had done the deed; family members said Gallagher didn’t want to believe the worst and argued it might have been unbalanced on wet ground.
Still, Gallagher moved the location of the hives from behind his garage to the side where he could keep a better eye on them.
Sobczak, a longtime Peninsula beekeeper, helped him move the boxes then. She was also on site as soon as he found the dead bees on Saturday.
“I leaned down there to take a video and I said, ‘Bob, it smells like Raid,’ ’’ Sobczak said.
Neighbors are split
Should city dwellers be allowed to keep bees?
Neighbors fall on both sides of the debate.
Next door to the Gallaghers, one family says the bees have been a pain.
Duane Wiegand said he’s been stung five times, once directly between the eyes. His wife also has been stung.
Wiegand said Gallagher informed him when he got his first hive and he wasn’t concerned.
“We said fine,” he said. “We’re not against bees.”
But Gallagher kept adding to his hives, he said, and now there are days “we have been chased out of our yard into the house.
“I have a bird feeder out back and a birdbath there, and there are times I can’t put water in the birdbath because there are too many bees and I’m afraid of getting stung again,” he said.
On the opposite side of the Gallaghers, Teresa Fullerton said the bees have never bothered her.
“We’re out here constantly and it’s never been an issue,” said Fullerton, whose deck is about 40 feet from the hives. On Monday, her driveway was spotted with a few dozen dead bees and a handful that were crawling, unable to fly.
She said having the bees next door has been a fun learning experience.
“Bob has really educated us on the whole honeybee situation,” she said. “It’s sad that people don’t understand how valuable they are to our overall health and well-being.”
Fullerton’s 6-year-old granddaughter, Bella Bird, talked excitedly about hanging out with Gallagher as he tended his hives.
“The bees never stung us. They come on our flowers and they make ’em grow,” Bella said. “The bees actually like us because we don’t kill them.”
Living next to the Fullertons, Kathy Velo is also in the pro-bee camp. She even leaves plates of water out to support them, a picture on her cellphone showing several honeybees enjoying one of her watering stations.
Councilman Russ Iona, whose City Council planning committee has been discussing the issue, said he’s allergic to bees, but he did his due diligence by visiting a beekeeping operation in preparation for next month’s hearing.
He said he didn’t find them to be a nuisance, and is in favor of finding a way for homeowners to keep a limited number of hives.
As it stands, the city’s planning department is recommending that standard city lots be allowed two hives, with some fencing and a water source to encourage the bees to stay close to home.
The legislation will be discussed at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 6, at City Council chambers in the Natatorium, 2345 Fourth St.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.