Bee fans try to get Los Angeles to allow hives in residential areas
Rob McFarland was in his florally vivacious backyard, tending his vegetable plot, when he noticed some honeybees buzzing around a tree. A few minutes later some bees had become tens of thousands.
“The sky was sort of darkened out,” he recalled. “It was kind of a presence that I couldn’t ignore.”
McFarland, a social media entrepreneur and avid gardener, was intrigued by honeybees and aware that hives have been dying from a mysterious cause labeled colony collapse disorder.
FOR THE RECORD:
Del Rey: An article in the July 15 Section A about efforts to promote beekeeping misspelled a community’s name. It is Del Rey, not Del Ray.
“I knew enough about honeybees to know they were in real trouble,” he said. “So the last thing that I wanted to go down in my own backyard, literally, was for these bees to be exterminated.”
He left frantic messages on a hotline operated by Backwards Beekeepers, a Los Angeles club that sent a member to his house. The beekeeper cut a clump of bees about the size of two footballs out of the tree without wearing a protective suit, showing an enthralled McFarland that the swarm was docile.
“It totally captured my attention, and I began to obsess over it a little bit,” he said.
McFarland and his wife, Chelsea, became interested in beekeeping but discovered that Los Angeles does not allow hives in residential zones. So, the McFarlands decided to launch an unusual grass-roots drive to change the city’s law by first winning support from at least 10 of L.A.’s 95 neighborhood councils.
Now, almost a year and a half later, their devotion has won support from eight councils. And an enthusiastic city councilman has initiated a formal study, a first step that could bring L.A. on board with other bee-friendly cities, such as New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Santa Monica.
“We have to be clear that this environment that we live in is threatened, that bees are an essential part,” said Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who boasts that he has two wild hives in his yard.
The McFarlands, with their own money and what they raised at a “yellow-tie” fundraiser, started a nonprofit organization called HoneyLove. (“Chelsea’s always referred to me as ‘honeylove,’ ” Rob explained.) With friends, family and allies, they host regular educational events across the city, such as honey tastings and mead-making. Rob, 32, who is lanky and a little laconic, and Chelsea, 30, radiant and effervescent, have devised a strategy that relies heavily on their infectious passion for bees.
“They’re just unhindered enthusiasm and love for what they’re doing, and how can you not love that?” said Kirk Anderson, a mentor to many L.A.-area beekeepers.
McFarland learned from beekeepers how to capture swarms and remove unwanted hives. He has been stung more times than he can count but recalls one time with wry humor: “I’d opened my veil to itch my nose real quick and the zipper snagged as I was closing it back up and right at that moment it was like Jedi bee shoots the gap right into my face and stings me right between the eyes,” he said.
The McFarlands have set up a sanctuary for rescued bees on a hilltop in the Simi Valley. One weekend, they installed a new hive among a dozen brilliantly hued ones surrounded by blooming mustard. Rob, sheathed in a beekeeper’s suit, watched the bees stream out to explore, hovering and circling tentatively.
“You figuring it out?” he asked gently.
Saving bees led the McFarlands to want to do more. Chelsea is a video editor who studied documentary filmmaking. Rob was working on a documentary on orangutans when they met. “Chelsea and I realized that we could utilize the skill set that we’ve acquired over the years in marketing and media,” Rob said.
They have created a sprawling social media presence to promote bees. Besides a dot-org website, HoneyLove is on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Change.org, Tumbler, Pinterest, MeetUp, you name it.
They have devised an ingenious campaign that blends zany fun and clever bee shtick, slyly anthropomorphizing the fuzzy yellow-and-black insects into huggable cartoons. At events, Rob sometimes wears a bee suit or a yellow T-shirt, and Chelsea typically appears more flamboyantly attired, often in a bee-striped tutu. “It’s pretty hard to ignore people when they are walking around in bee suits,” Rob said.
Rob has drawn some of the distinctive images they use, including a stylized queen bee with a crown, while Chelsea is the source of much of their playful creativity. “I mean this in the most positive way. She’s a drama queen,” Rob said. “A drama queen bee?” Chelsea shot back.
The McFarlands first sought approval for residential beekeeping from their neighborhood council in Mar Vista, devising an approach that included a four-month feasibility study and extensive community outreach.
“Their energy, their happiness with which they have approached this is so amazing,” said Maritza Przekop, a Mar Vista Community Council member who has worked with them. “They have just jumped over every obstacle.”
Endless meetings, it turned out, are Chelsea’s forte, although Rob joins her for some. “She has the sort of endurance and toughness,” Rob said. “I’d rather get stung by a hive of bees.”
Neighborhood council members, used to dealing with irritated constituents, tend to be startled and pleased by the McFarlands. At a committee meeting of the South Robertson Neighborhoods Council, the two, finishing each other’s sentences, answered questions about wasps, feral hives, stings, allergies, industrial agriculture, swarms, why bees are disappearing, laws in other cities and tainted honey.
Besides Mar Vista, the McFarlands have won support from the neighborhood councils of Del Ray, Greater Griffith Park, South Robertson, Silver Lake, Hollywood United, Atwater Village and West L.A.
And they won Rosendahl’s admiration. “They’re both very positive spirits. They both take this seriously, and I enjoy that,” said the councilman, who can extemporize eloquently about the role the endangered honeybee plays in pollinating flowers, fruits and vegetables, and in making honey and beeswax.
The trouble with honeybees, of course, is that they can sting and some people are extremely allergic.
“That is a huge issue,” Rosendahl said, adding that any ordinance will have to deal with the issue of neighbors. “Education is part of the process. A bee doesn’t come after you unless you somehow disturb them.”
Nearly every weekend, the McFarlands can be found somewhere talking up honeybees.
On one sunny-warm, breezy-cool, everything-blooming day, Rob stood behind a table with a display case filled with bees scurrying around a honeycomb, explaining their highly complex habits.
“I’m sorry,” interrupted Donna Salvini, who lives in Venice and has an organic garden she said is frequented by honeybees that just calmly hang out. “I just find that insanely exciting.”
“It is, it is,” Rob said.
“Because there’s really nothing more magical,” Salvini said. “I mean they just do so much.”
