When the city of Santa Rosa told 10-year-old beekeeper Nicholas Bard he had to get rid of his beloved backyard bees — an impressive colony consisting of thousands, he took on a months-long battle to change the city’s zoning laws, and won.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, Bard’s love for bees began as a toddler and evolved at age seven when he met retired schoolteacher and farm owner Ettamarie Peterson, who gave a beekeeping presentation at the local science fair. Peterson later gave Bard his own swarm, which he turned into a thriving colony as part of a project with his 4-H club, per the Press Democrat.

He told KPIX, “It was the best decision I made, ever.”

Per the Times, Bard lovingly listens to his bees and reads to them. Quite endearingly, he addresses them as “Girls” since they're all female.

Then, earlier this year, the city abruptly notified Bard’s family that the bees needed to be removed from their yard because beekeeping is considered an occupation and therefore a zoning violation.

“We thought it was a mistake,” Nicholas’ dad, Zach Bard, told the Press Democrat.

“I was pretty sad and they were sad too,” Nicholas told the LA Times, speaking of his parents and the bees. “When I told them, you can hear how they’re feeling because the tone of their wings, the vibrating changes ... so you could hear that they were sad.”

That’s when Bard decided to spread awareness of the zoning law with the help of the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association, as many of his neighbors, who have their own backyard beehives, were also unaware of the law. Before he knew it, he was getting swarmed with media engagement invites, and he made sure to give his bees plenty of support before such engagements.

“Because all the bees are girls, worker bees are girls, I say, ‘Girls, you’re going to be on the news tonight,’” Bard told the Times. “Or I’ll say, ‘Girls, how are you doing this morning?’ I just want to give them a heads-up.”

Bard’s efforts paid off, and the city is now in the process of amending the law to allow for student beekeeping on residential property, which they expect will take six to eight months.

“The city of Santa Rosa does not want to do anything to discourage people who want to support our pollinator community,” Santa Rosa Mayor Mark Stapp told the Times. “We were thankful to Nicholas and his family for raising this issue, because we didn’t even know that we were preventing this.”

The decision couldn’t have come too soon for Bard. “It’s been five months, almost half a year since all of this started. I’ve learned just how much I care for my bees in the process of this ordeal,” he told the Times.

Image: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

• Governor Newsom announced the launch of a new homeless response task force Friday, which will focus on state property along roadways in the state’s ten largest cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, San Jose, Long Beach, Anaheim, Bakersfield, and Fresno. [KQED]
• Vallejo police shot a man suspected of vandalizing a vehicle on the 2000 block of Ascot Parkway around 6:01 pm Friday; several agencies are investigating the shooting. [KRON4]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Bees are big business, especially as their numbers are dwindling and their colonies are threatened by various toxins. And since a lot of farmers around California, especially almond growers, now pay big bucks to rent bees for the pollination season, we have a new brand of crime to report on: bee theft. One enterprising Sacramento area man, 51-year-old Pavel Tveretinov, was arrested in Fresno Tuesday on suspicion of stealing an estimated $875,000 worth of other peoples' bees, which he was then renting out for profit, as CBS 5 reports.

According to the Fresno County Sheriff's Office, the investigation into the pilfered bees began a couple weeks ago, on April 28, when detective arrived at an orchard to find 100 hives that were allegedly stolen from a beekeeper in Madera County. They promptly arrested a man in a protective suit who was tending to the bees, who was identified as Tveretinov.

Investigators then followed Tveretinov's trail elsewhere in Fresno County where they found thousands of other hives, 2,500 in all, and they believe he's been stealing hives and renting them for his own profit for as long as three years, and his crimes spanned at least six California counties. One Montana beekeeper said that all of her bees had been stolen, telling CBS affiliate KGPE, "Every colony of bees that I owned except for one. So I basically at the age of 56 had to start over from scratch. They totally put me out of business."

Now some beekeepers are having to hire private security to watch over their precious pollinators. And a special Fresno County prosecutor assigned to agriculture cases will be taking on the case.

Tveretinov is currently free on $10,000 bail, and its unclear whether all the bees are making their way back to their rightful owners.

Previously: New Study Suggests Bee Colony Collapses Triggered By Fungicides

A swarm of highly aggressive bees has taken over part of a neighborhood in Concord, and starting Friday, residents began calling police to report being attacked or stung. So far, the bees have killed two dachshunds, as ABC 7 reports, and the hive has yet to be contained.

Multiple people have reported being stung, include a postal worker, who went to the hospital for treatment Friday, as KRON 4 reports.

The hive is located at a home on the 3800 block of Hitchcock Drive in Concord, and bee experts say they are likely Africanized bees that have migrated from South America and usurped European honeybee hives. A homeowner trying to remove one hive may have caused this colony to turn aggressive.

Also, apparently, this is bee swarm season.

Calling the swarm "off the charts aggressive," Mt. Diablo Beekeepers Association member Norman Lott tells KRON 4 that they will be putting out a temporary hive with pheromone bait to lure the bees away. And, he says, only a DNA test can confirm if these are, indeed, Africanized "killer bees."

Via the Chron, you can see Lott giving a press conference Saturday about the ordeal, and he advises people to drive through the area with their car windows up, and not to walk through on foot.

This is the first apparent major encounter with Africanized bees in the Bay Area since researchers found the first of their kind here last September. Those bees were discovered in Lafayette, and as UC San Diego professor Joshua Kohn said at the time, "An Africanized honeybee out foraging on flowers is no more aggressive than your average European honeybee. Nor is the sting of an individual any different. It’s only when a hive is disturbed that the level of aggression from Africanized bees is elevated."

Previously: The Bay Area Has Killer Bees For The First Time Ever

Did you know it's swarming season for bees right now?!?! Those of us who don't live in the country maybe don't have to worry quite so much, but with all the various rooftop hives that hobbyists have installed around town lately, maybe we should! An elementary school in Vacaville was "briefly invaded by tens of thousands of bees" on Tuesday afternoon, prompting a rescue response by professional beekeepers.

Some 80,000 bees had to be removed from a tree outside Foxboro Elementary School in one of an increasing number of reported swarming incidents.

As new queens are hatched in the spring, bee colonies split, you see, and swarms go off in search a new place to make a nest. A bee expert quoted by KTVU assures us these are not killer bees, and even though a swarm might seem scary, they're pretty harmless. "When they swarm, they don't have a hive to defend, so they're less aggressive. They're also engorged with honey, because they bring as much of a food supply with them as they can."

We do not understand this, and it still would freak our shit out. Apparently, the kids at the school all stayed pretty calm, and know stingings were reported.

This news follows on that recent report, however, of the swarm of killer bees who terrorized the Giants during a spring training game in Arizona last month. So, we're glad we don't live in Arizona.

[KTVU]
[AP]

In an Inside Scoop post today, Chronicle food critic and man-of-impeccable-taste, Michael Bauer proves he's only in it for the honey. In a partnership with the Marin Bee Company and the paper's Home & Garden section, Bauer's Food & Wine team have selflessly adopted a few colonies of bees whose population is currently "in crisis" (something to do with the world ending in 2012, or maybe just a cold winter in Southern California). Let's hope they fare better than the sabotaged Hayes Valley bee farm.

Anyway, Bauer's bees will live on the roof of the Chronicle offices and eventually provide the staff below with natural sweeteners for their Earl Greys and their Chamomiles, but the honey blend still needs a name. Two that Chronicle staffers have offered up are: "Derelicte Honey" (because Zoolander references are always timely and hilarious) and the expository "Chronicle Rooftop Honey". We thought we could do better with: "SFGate Sticky Sweet Comment Bait", but there's got to be something less direct...

[InsideScoop]

Picture taken outside Hayes Valley Farms. Earlier this week, the farm lost over 200,000 bees after someone doused pesticide over several colonies.

Bee butt.

Holy smokes, this is the most harrowing thing we've ever reported. Allan Hough over at Mission Mission reports (via Inhabitat's Mike Chino) that bees have descended upon the Mission district. And they're out for blood! Check it:

Today (August 2nd) at 12:00 noon I spotted this itinerant horde of bees slowly making its way down 14th street between Mission and Valencia. The roving mass was apparently following a fugitive queen as she made her way down the block, clustering on top of cars and buildings with no concern for private property...

Go here for more detail.

Anyone else see the roving swarm? (Also, anybody else ever been stung by a bee before? We haven't. What can we expect? Please advise.)

Update: Bees quarantined, says MM. If you should ever need emergency beekeeping at a moment's notice - and, really, who doesn't? - contact sfbee.org. Bzzzz.

Beekeepers had to be called in to "wrangle" the insects back into their crates and back on the truck. The highway has since reopened. (Shudder.)