Janet Katz is the President of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association, and like most beekeepers, must protect her hives from extreme cold and heat, drought, disease, starvation, the loss of a queen and even bears.
Now, after two decades of nurturing bees for honey and wax, and to pollinate her gardens, she now has a new worry: the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.
“They should be encouraging beekeeping, not making it harder,” said Katz, president of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association, and who has four hives on her two-acre property in Chester Township.
But harder it will be. With fees, waiver applications, setback requirements and other zoning gobbledygook — all the things that bureaucracy does to suck the honey out of a comb.