Santa Rosa 9-year-old Nicholas Bard is a walking encyclopedia of honeybee facts.
A colony needs 30 to 60 pounds of honey to survive each winter. The average lifespan of bees is about two weeks. And individuals hold distinct jobs, from cleaners to foragers, during their life cycle.
Nicholas knows how much bees contribute to California’s agricultural economy and the alarming rate at which the population is declining.
He’s picked up that knowledge over the past three years while raising his own colony in his family’s Proctor Terrace backyard.
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But earlier this year, the Bard family was hit with a surprising notice that threatened to bring the whole thing to a halt.
Santa Rosa code enforcement officers in an April 16 complaint accused the family of operating a beekeeping business against city residential regulations and ordered them to remove the hive.
“We thought it was a mistake,” dad Zach Bard said.
The bees aren’t some sort of side hustle for the family.
Nicholas is raising the bees as part of a local 4-H club, a hands-on program that provides a range of science and arts education for youth.
Now he’s getting a lesson in civics and local government.
Five months on, Nicholas and his family are at the heart of a fight to affirm the legal right to keep bees in Santa Rosa.
Though there’s no official count, the Bards are far from the only residents keeping bees on their Santa Rosa property, and they’ve enlisted the help of the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association, other agricultural groups and people active in local beekeeping to call on the city to explicitly allow backyard bees.
City planning officials, though firm on their stance that such beekeeping is prohibited, are now moving to craft an ordinance that would govern beekeeping.
Mayor Mark Stapp, who recently met the Bards at a 4-H event where Nicholas was volunteering, said community members have flooded the city and council with emails and calls in support of the Bards and the policy change.
Stapp said while the city must weigh health and safety concerns related to bees, it should encourage young people and amateur beekeepers working to support the bee population.
“We have ordinances that allow for animal keeping in other instances, but why bees were handled in this heavy-handed way, I’m not sure,” he said.
The mayor hadn’t yet seen a copy of the proposed ordinance but said as it was described to him it would likely limit the number of hives and require colonies be placed a certain distance from the property line to reduce impacts on neighbors.
“We obviously don’t want a large commercial bee operation in residential neighborhoods … but if we’re talking about a limited number of hives that wouldn’t unduly impact neighbors, that’s something we want to encourage,” Stapp said. “I think that’s something that my colleagues would be supportive of and something that I’ll be supportive of.”
City complaint: Beekeeping a nuisance, against code
The code enforcement notice landed in the Bard’s mailbox on a Friday afternoon. It said the family had until April 28 — less than two weeks — to schedule a home inspection to ensure the alleged violation had been addressed.
Failure to respond to the notice within the timeline, the city warned, could result in authorities obtaining a warrant to come onto the property, according to a copy of the notice shared by the family with The Press Democrat.
The notice stemmed from a complaint filed with the city on March 13 by a community member who reported witnessing a beekeeping operation at the home. It appears to be the first formal complaint about Santa Rosa beekeeping in recent memory.
The following Monday, the Bards went down to City Hall to seek clarification from code officers and explain that they weren’t operating a commercial bee operation.
The code enforcement officer was somewhat apologetic, mom Sara Bard said. He told the family he’d take up the issue with his supervisor and provide an update.
In an email sent later that day, the officer notified the Bards the violation stood.
Under staff’s reading of the code, bees were prohibited as a home occupation and in noncommercial operations like theirs. City code, the officer wrote, also prohibits the maintenance of insects on a property, which is considered a nuisance.
The Bards disagreed.
“It kind of felt like somebody said, ‘Hey there’s bees,’ and then (code enforcement) did a lot of work to try to find something that would say that we couldn’t have them,” Zach said.
Certain types of bumblebees are listed as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act and state lawmakers in recent years have sought to expand protections for bees, ban bee-killing pesticides and fund research to address the declining population.
Local regulations around backyard beekeeping vary across jurisdictions.
Petaluma allows no more than two bee colonies per household and requires they be kept a safe distance from sidewalks and other pedestrian walkways. Beekeeping is permitted in rural residential and single-family residential zoning districts in Cloverdale without restrictions.
Santa Rosa’s code is less clear.
The zoning code expressly prohibits beekeeping as a home occupation. Maintaining wild bees or hornets is considered a nuisance.
But keeping bees as a hobby appears to fall in a sort of gray area. Community members within residential neighborhoods can care for and keep up to five domestic or exotic animals, including pot-bellied pigs, and can keep hens in an outdoor coop. Livestock is allowed in other zoning districts but the code specifically carves out bees from the definition of livestock.
Code enforcement officials, after meeting with the Bards, gave the family until May 7 to remove the hive before returning to the property to check for compliance — a decision that has since been rescinded as staff works on new policies.
Bees long a passion for Nicholas
Nicholas tucked his long, dark blond braid into a beekeepers hat and slid on a pair of leather gloves as he prepared to go into his hive on a recent Tuesday.
Standing atop a green step stool and with the help of his dad, the pair slowly lifted the wooden top covering the roughly 4-foot enclosure.
Zachary Bard and his son 9-year-old Nicholas check Nicholas’ backyard bee hive, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in Santa Rosa. The bees are part of a 4-H program Nicholas is involved with. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat)
A slight drizzle earlier that afternoon had tapered off and the small gold-and-black striped insects emerged from the hive. Some hovered atop the comb as Nicholas and Zach showed off the honey frames they had created. Others buzzed around the Bard’s backyard before returning through a small opening at the bottom of the box.
Nicholas checks the colony once every two weeks, assessing its health and condition, size, the bees’ demeanor, that they have proper honey stores and whether the queen is laying eggs.
They’ve become a special part of the home — Sara enjoys observing them as she looks out the back window. Nicholas loves reading to them.
The Bards have long nurtured Nicholas’ varying interests, from insects and reptiles, ceramics to lacrosse and mountain biking. They were initially skeptical about beekeeping.
The idea was first planted when then 3-year-old Nicholas and his family attended an event at a Healdsburg garden where organizers provided a beekeeping demonstration.
“Ever since then I wanted to keep bees,” Nicholas said.
His parents felt it was a lot to take on at the time.
“There’s so much already that we were doing,” Zach said. “I was like, I don’t want a new project, I don’t want a new hobby.”
Then, about two and a half years ago, Nicholas and his mom met Sonoma County’s Queen Bee — Petaluma resident Ettamarie Peterson — at the North Bay Science Discovery Day at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.
Peterson, a retired teacher who has led the beekeeping project for the Liberty 4-H Club for the past quarter-century, talked to them about the program.
They signed up on the spot.
“They came home, I had been doing work all day, and they said, ‘Guess what? We’re getting bees!’” Zach recalled.
The 4-H project, which Peterson launched in 2000, provides bees, equipment and protective gear at no cost to participating families and Peterson and other volunteers educate the kids on how to care for the bees, host monthly meetups where the group makes beehive frames and other bee-related crafts and visit local hives.
Nicholas’ first bees didn’t make it through the end of summer, possibly sick or in search of a new hive. That phenomenon is known as absconding.
He didn’t fare much better with a second colony.
But his interest didn’t waver.
“It’s just been a journey, all sorts of ups and downs, but it’s fun and exciting,” Nicholas said.
He and his parents joined the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association at Peterson’s suggestion, where they’ve connected with long-time beekeepers and become increasingly involved in the group, even assisting on relocations where trained beekeepers respond to reports of honeybee swarms and move them to an apiary.
It was during the family’s first call early last year that Nicholas’ luck changed.
The family was part of a team that responded to a call about a swarm — a mass of bees on the move — at a property across the street from the Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts on Humboldt Street not far from their home. The Bards volunteered to take in the bees.
Zachary Bard checks his son 9-year-old Nicholas’ backyard bee hive, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in Santa Rosa. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat)
The hive has thrived, in part, the family suspects, because they were already acclimated to the microclimate in their neighborhood.
They survived through the colder and rainy months this past winter, a process known as overwintering, where the bees hunker down and rely on honey and pollen reserves to live. The colony has since grown significantly.
New policy coming to council
As the Bards weighed their options after the code complaint, they recognized the outcome of the case could have wide-ranging impacts beyond Nicholas’ colony.
“At that point we wondered, ‘If this is happening to us, what is this going to mean for other Santa Rosa beekeepers?’” Sara said.
That concern sparked calls and emails to the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association, 4-H, the local chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers, which the family also belongs to, and other people active in local beekeeping.
The beekeepers association, which has taken up the cause, pushed for the city to prepare a formal interpretation of the existing zoning code to affirm beekeeping is allowed.
President Cheryl Koeller said city residents have long kept bees without the city stepping in. She noted beekeeping is in line with other, similar land uses permitted in the city such as keeping chickens.
“In our eyes, there hasn’t been any problems with how things have been for decades,” she said.
A hearing before the zoning administrator to settle the issue was scheduled for July 17, but staff postponed the meeting to review a rebuttal the association submitted in response to planners’ finding that beekeeping is not allowed in any instance under the existing code.
The association argued that while the code prohibited beekeeping in specific contexts, such as a home business, it didn’t outright ban it. The group also stated that while bees are excluded from the livestock category in city code, that only meant they weren’t subjected to livestock regulations.
Koeller in an August update said planning officials informed her they would be moving forward with preparing a beekeeping ordinance rather than following through with the code interpretation.
Staffers decided to proceed with an amendment to address beekeeping regulations “in response to strong community interest,” City Hall spokesperson Misti Wood said.
Wood said initiating the process internally will help speed it. If the zoning administrator would’ve formally ruled against residents in the hearing, hobby beekeepers would have been required to apply for a zoning amendment to legalize the use, a lengthy and costly process.
The amendment will identify what zoning districts are appropriate for beekeeping and establish standards for managing hives.
Planning officials are studying regulations in other cities and working with the beekeepers association on the update and will conduct community outreach as the process goes forward.
A draft policy is likely six to eight months away and would go to the Planning Commission before heading to the City Council for consideration.
The Bard family, dad Zachary, 9-year-old Nicholas and mom Sara, check Nicholas’ backyard bee hive, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in Santa Rosa. The bees are part of a 4-H program Nicholas is involved with. The family was hit with a code violation by the city for an alleged beekeeping business and has set off months long dispute with city planners. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat)
In the meantime, Nicholas’ bees can continue to buzz around the family’s backyard.
“I think the city thought we were just going to fold and move the bees,” Sara said. “But I feel like the way we want him to grow up is to fight. We want him to be a fighter for the good, and this is good in our eyes.
“We think pollinators of all sorts are important and we want him to learn to stand up for himself, and that’s why we’re standing up for ourselves and other beekeepers in Santa Rosa.”
You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or [email protected]. On X (Twitter) @paulinapineda22.