Local News in Brief : Beekeeper Challenges Hive Registration
A La Crescenta beekeeper who kept nine apiaries in Tujunga pleaded innocent Thursday in Municipal Court to charges that he failed to register his hives with the city.
Nereu Da Silva, 56, claimed that he should be exempted from registering his apiaries because he keeps bees as a hobby, not as a commercial enterprise.
But Los Angeles prosecutors, worried that Africanized killer bees might arrive undetected, charged Da Silva with four violations of the state Food and Agricultural Code in not registering his hives and two counts of illegally keeping bees in a residential area. All six counts are misdemeanors.
“He had nine apiaries, and that’s considered to be more than just a hobby,” Ted Goldstein, spokesman for the city attorney’s office, said.
Goldstein said a single apiary can yield up to 400 pounds of honey a year. Each apiary comprises many hives and can contain up to 50,000 bees.
City officials said they do not believe that any killer bees have arrived in Los Angeles County. They added that apiaries must be registered so they can be inspected for diseases such as American foul-brood, which nearly destroyed beekeeping in the eastern United States at the turn of the century.
Da Silva faces a jury trial Aug. 29, Goldstein said.
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