"If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live."
- Maurice Maeterlink, author of The Life of the Bee

Honey bees are important to agricultural crops, responsible for pollinating up to 80% of the food we eat. Unlike many native pollinators, honey bees are generalists and are active in early spring. Many agricultural crops would not be viable without their valuable service, and the honey collected in the bargain has a lower carbon footprint and is much more local than imported sugar. The current trend in beekeeping is for more beekeepers to tend smaller operations. There are a number of reasons for this trend, but increasing expenses related to land purchase, equipment, older commercial beekeepers retiring, and increasing annual overwintering and pest/disease related losses are primary. Many of the beekeeping bylaws in our predominantly rural area here in Renfrew County are prohibitive for the newer generation of beekeepers who are not able to purchase large plots of agricultural land, with may choosing to keep bees on land belonging to others. Bees differ significantly from other domesticated farm animals in that they leave the farmer's property and travel up to four kilometres to forage before returning. They don't need a lot of area in terms of living space, but they do require varied nutritional forage. In a rural area where many provide for themselves and families with agriculture, having bees in the neighbourhood is an absolute must. 

On March 19th, 2025, McNab Braeside held a public meeting to discuss adopting a new set of bylaws drafted by the county planner. I watched the meeting and noticed some issues with the wording of a proposed bylaw on beekeeping and urban agriculture. Bees were listed alongside chickens with a limit of five hives per property for properties over 2 acres. The chicken bylaw had a built in limitation stating that it did not apply to properties that are zoned rural agricultural, but the beekeeping bylaw did not have any such limitation. To an angry neighbour or a bylaw enforcement officer, it could be read in such a way as to limit beekeeping to five hives on properties of any size. Otherwise it was a solid step in the right direction, allowing the keeping of bees in all zones (not just rural agricultural lots of 50 acres or over, as in the current set of bylaws). 

I contacted the county planner directly to point out the discrepancies and offer some stakeholder input, believing that it was better to deal with the issue at the source before similar by-laws are recommended to other townships in the county. These attempts were not well received. I fully acknowledge and appreciate that the intention was to open beekeeping up to all zones, but the limit of five hives per lot and lack of limitation on the bylaw itself was concerning. We have some beekeepers in the area who have kept bees at a commercial level (over 50 hives) on lots as small as 2.5 acres without ever realizing they were breaking bylaws. They also have never in over 40 years had a single bylaw complaint or neighbour complaint. In later conversations with the Ontario Beekeepers Association, the county planner's office acknowledged that it was an arbitrary number and could be amended by the municipalities themselves. These kinds of decisions affecting people's livelihoods should not be left to the whims of government officials and their arbitrary numbers. There are existing reports from Sustain Ontario and the University of Toronto outlining best practices for creating fair and equitable bylaws for beekeepers and their neighbours, including recommendations to ask stakeholders for input.  I have offered this document to both the county planner and the McNab Braeside council.  I then made a request to put in a delegation with McNab Braeside to discuss the matter before they finalize their bylaws. 

On Monday, I met with the council of McNab Braeside to discuss upcoming changes to and introduction of urban beekeeping bylaws. It went poorly to say the least. I was interrupted seven minutes into what was supposed to be a fifteen minute presentation and told that I only had five minutes left. I was not given access to a slide clicker and had to rely on someone else to switch slides for me, further cutting into my presentation time. All told, I completed the talk in around thirteen minutes, though I was forced to gloss over some points and could not fully see the presentation I was giving. In the question and answer period, I was grilled, threatened, and ridiculed by the mayor. She huffed and puffed and rolled her eyes throughout the talk. You can see the meeting here at around the 1 hour 13 minute mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzyiTMX6vrw

It is within my rights (and yours) to meet with councils and provide input as a stakeholder at these types of meetings. I believed that the best moment to address these changes was at a time when they are in the process of updating the bylaws. When I was asked last year by a landowner to place bees on their property in McNab Braeside, I was unaware of how large the property was and assumed that the landowner had done their due diligence. Beyond that, the property is perfectly suited to bees: there are nearby water sources, diverse nutrition, good protection from wind, and an easterly facing lot. They have a single residential neighbour and have an agreement with them in regards to the bees. Additional adjoining properties are fully rural. The bees there are bothering no one.

In most municipalities, bylaws against bees are only enforced on a complaints basis. This is also true of beekeeping. Under current bylaws in most of Renfrew County, beekeeping is actually only permitted in rural agricultural zones, meaning lots exceeding 20 (and in some cases like McNab Braeside, 50) acres. The current documented trend in beekeeping is for smaller operations on smaller lots, meaning that over 50% of the beekeepers in Renfrew County are already breaking the rules, though generally unknowingly. If municipalities start to come down hard on beekeepers, it will affect pollination rates for nearby food crops and destroy the side hustles and livelihoods of many already-struggling beekeepers in our area, as well as cause trouble for other farming operations. At a time when Canadian sovereignty and food security is at issue, we should be encouraging more small scale operations, like the victory gardens of World Wars I & II. The face of agriculture is changing and municipal bylaws need to change alongside it, especially in predominantly rural areas. Treating our rural areas like urban areas does no one any favours.

At the Ontario level, we already have beekeeping laws that require us to consider our neighbours and the needs of our bees when placing hives. Even these are somewhat problematic because they do not offer protection to beekeepers if there is a complaint from a non-neighbour. That being said, these laws are sufficient to deal with most complaints, without adding to the burden on municipal bylaw officials. In a survey of beekeepers in our area, I found that no one (except myself) has had an issue with bylaw, their neighbours, or the provincial apiarist's office. I will now have two complaints levelled against my operation by non-neighbours simply for having an operation. I hate to be the outlier in that sort of statistic, but it does go to show that laws about bees at all levels need upgrading and that beekeepers need protection. Having beekeeping bylaws that are enforced on a complaints-only basis is not enough to protect beekeepers and their operations from NIMBYism and unfounded complaints from unaffected parties.

If you live in a rural area, or particularly McNab Braeside and want to see more protections for beekeepers, please share my cautionary tale. Let's tell McNab Braeside that it's time to ease up regulations on beekeepers in this rural area and offer them some protections by allowing the creation of Beekeeping Friendly Neighbourhoods where neighbours agree to allow beekeeping within their space.