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Charlestown proposal had zoning board buzzing

Proposed rendering of beehive

Blueprint submitted with proposal.

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved plans for a beehive at a community garden at 499 Main St. in Sullivan Square.

Gardens for Charlestown needed zoning approval for an apiary because it would be closer to the street than normally allowed under the city's urban-agriculture zoning code.

Andrew Oliver of Gardens for Charlestown said beekeeper Dan Ellis has extensive experience maintaining beehives in Hull. Oliver said the honey would not be for sale - it would either go to members or remain with the bees.

The board approved the project unanimously.

"I think that's the best case we've had since I've been on this board," member Mark Fortune said.

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Comments

Love it!

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Glad something around here is simple and sane. Best of luck to the bees, bee-keepers & gardeners.

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this matter wouldn't need to be brought to the Zoning Board for 'mother may I' permission in the first place.

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Good thing the zoning code protects us from the horrors of beehives with small front yard setbacks.

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To bee positive about Charlestown!

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Beekeeping is cool but they outcompete native pollinators and bees which ultimately is bad

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Honey bees are native to Charlestown. They will be a welcome addition to our enviroment. How is this in anyway a bad thing @BannedFromTheRoxy?

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even though they have indeed naturalized here.

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When you're talking about species that were introduced hundreds of years ago, does it make sense to talk about "native"?

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That's not necessarily a value judgement -- an introduced species can be entirely harmless to an ecosystem, but honey bees were nevertheless introduced. A couple hundred years isn't that long ago, ecologically.

I don't know where the cutoff is. Maybe the humans who first came to North America brought some seeds with them, and we would probably call those plants native at this point. But the introduction of honey bees is very much not prehistoric.

(I actually have no idea if they're even detrimental to native pollinators in any way, as was claimed up-thread. That's the first time I've heard that idea. Plausible, though, I guess?)

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It says 'Let's Bee Friends' and there's a picture of a bee on it!

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The wasps aren't gonna love that!
They'll be a lot of buzz about property value etc..

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than some of the plans architects draw up for multi unit residences.

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Having attended a public meeting about a proposed multi to be built on a wetland, where the developers offered up a map that might as well have been a star-chart off the Enterprise for all the reference detail it showed. No streets, nothing like that. This is a Mercator projection compare to that.

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