Beekeeper gets to keep her hives in place
Members of the city’s Human Services Committee ruled Monday in favor of allowing a beekeeper to continue to operate beehives behind her home in the 3000 block of Grant Street, bringing an apparent end to the more-than-yearlong dispute between next-door neighbors.
Committee members backtracked from a decision last November approving beekeeper Mary Nisi’s beehives on the condition that she move them farther away from a pool where her next-door neighbor Nina Paleologos had maintained they were attacking guests.
At the same time, committee members were acting on a recommendation from entomologist Brittany Buckles, who was brought in by the city to recommend solutions to the situation. Buckles was not in attendance at Monday’s meeting.
The entomologist conducted an evaluation “without recommending the removal of the beehives but, as a compromise, recommended the relocation of the beehives across the yard closer to the house on the other corner of the fenced-in backyard,” noted Ike Ogbo, the city’s health and human services director, in a memo about the situation. “This recommendation was supposed to be implemented in April 2024, when the bees became more active again.
“In April 2024, the beekeeper stated in an email that she had employed a number of strategies to improve operations but declined to move the bees as recommended,” Ogbo noted. “The beekeeper stated that relocating the bee hives was not an official request. Staff sought further guidance from the entomologist, who stated in an email received in May 2024 that without a specimen of what stung the neighbor, the entomologist could only recommend the relocation of the hives as a social compromise but not based on entomological perspectives.”
‘Social compromise’
During discussion at Monday’s meeting, Eighth Ward Council Member Devon Reid observed that the expert’s recommendation “didn’t seem like a mandate. It seemed like it was a social compromise.”
Further, with no stinging incidents in the nearly year since then, to “save the pollinators, I would move to approve this,” he said.
Others committee members joined him in that view. Council Member Juan Geracaris (9th Ward), who was featured in a RoundTable article earlier this year about Evanston residents who raise chickens, said he hadn’t heard anything at the meeting that would change his vote last November in favor of issuing a license to Nisi – though with the condition the hives be moved at the time.
If anything, “I would just give a plug for the city’s mediation services,” he said about the dispute between the neighbors. “I feel bad that it’s gotten to this point.”
Council Member Bobby Burns (5th Ward), chairing the meeting, also agreed with continuing to back a license.
He acknowledged, though, that he found the expert’s opinion “a little confusing” on how the committee should proceed.
“To get a recommendation to move the hives, and then through another email suggest it was a social compromise, I don’t think that was what we were looking for,” he said. “I was looking for an expert to tell me exactly what could or couldn’t be done in this situation – so no more social compromises, at least if I’m chair.”
Council Member Eleanor Revelle (7th Ward) said she was intrigued by a comment from Nisi during public comment earlier in Monday’s meeting, that “if she moved the hives even two feet or whatever, that the bees wouldn’t be able to find the hives.”
“So I guess I’m confused about why the entomologist even suggested that as a social compromise,” Revelle said.
The committee’s vote is a final one, and not subject to review from the full City Council.
Ogbo said the city would now move ahead with an inspection of Nisi’s operation and, finding the apiary in keeping with ordinance, issue a license that had been held up last November with the condition Nisi move the hive.
Undermining committee’s authority
Paleologos and her attorney, Ann Pantoga, left council chambers shortly after the committee’s vote, declining to comment.
“We left the meeting in November believing Ms. Nisi was going to move her hives to the other corner of her yard, as recommended by the committee,” Pantoga reminded committee members.
Paleologos, a physician who has lived at her Grant Street home since 1990, told committee members that since the hearings last year, she had taken a number of steps to mitigate the bees being attracted to her pool.
“It hasn’t worked out very well,” she said. “I’m not against pollinators. I usually like to plant flowers and things that would attract pollinators. … There could be other flying insects that are stinging insects. But I’ve lived there a really long time. There are still multiple bees that are attracted to the pool.”
She noted that “we all came to what the recommendations were back in November, strong recommendations from the entomologist.”
She said that “personally, I feel it undermines the authority of this committee to not have people follow those sort of recommendations.”
Jessica Hopper told committee members that she regularly spends long hours in Nisi’s yard as her house sitter and friend, and that her children play there as well.
“I sit next to the bee superhighway,” she said. “It’s hugely inspiring to see.”
A birthday party at Nisi’s home attracted 40 people, she said.
“You know how many issues I’ve had there?” she said to committee members. “None.”
Beekeeper reacts
Nisi noted that the recommendations from the entomologist were contained in the body of an email, but were not part of the official record, influencing her action.
She said she’s sorry that her neighbor has to deal with insects when she goes out to use her pool.
“But it’s part of the deal when you go outside, there might be insects, there might be things. You might step on things. They might land on your pool or inside your margarita,” she told council members.
Nisi countered that a wasps’ nest found on Paleologos’ property last year could just as well have been responsible for the multiple stinging attacks at the time.
“I did not move my hives,” she said, explaining her decision. “I didn’t because there’s a rule you [don’t] move your hives two feet or two miles. If I move my hive five feet, the bees will come back to where they were, and they will die right there because their home disappeared.”
