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Un-BEE-lievable: NYC Fines Man $2,000 For Not Watering His Hive

Decision Later Changed To A Warning, But Resident, Lawmaker Still Stung

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Honey bees

Honey bees in NYC (Photo: CBS 2)

kramer

Reporting Marcia Kramer

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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — This story probably falls into the category of Ripley’s “bee-lieve” it or not.

The Bloomberg administration socked a Queens man with a hefty fine for failing to water his beehive, reports CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer.

It’s a new one in the annals of city government. The cash-strapped Bloomberg administration has mounted a “sting operation” against city beekeepers — ticketing a Douglaston man an unbelievable $2,000 for not watering his beehive.

“It’s outrageous. It’s difficult to understand how this could happen,” Tip Sempliner said.

And here’s why: there is a beehive waterer a few feet from the hive.

When asked if it’s logical to assume the bees could fly two feet to get the water, Sempliner said, “I don’t know if they’d bother. They could just step out of the hive and fall in the water.”

But that’s not all. Sempliner’s property is right on Little Neck Bay and he has several fresh water ponds nearby, so if the bees don’t like their water dish. There are many other bee-utiful options.

“I felt sorry for the inspector. I thought we should probably buy him some glasses,” Sempliner said.

The hive actually belongs to Sempliner’s friend, Jon Pettingill, who said the beehive waterer has been there since the hive was put up over a year ago.

“It does seem like the city is a little revenue hungry and trying to bring it in wherever they can,” Pettingill said.

Queens Councilman Daniel Halloran agreed.

“This is another example of the city going out of its way to collect revenue at the expense of our citizens. There are criminals who get cases in city criminal court who don’t have a $500 fine, let alone a $2,000 … this is absolutely absurd,” Halloran said.

Sempliner’s message to Mayor Michael Bloomberg is simple: you can catch more bees with honey than you can with vinegar — or in this case a city summons. He said City Hall should dismiss it.

Apparently the mayor agrees – you can catch more bees with honey, within limits. Because after Kramer called, a decision was made to change the violation to a “warning.”

Why, asked Kramer? Because, said a mayoral spokesman, officials “thought it through.”

Will New York City stop at nothing to get cash from residents? What do you think? Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below.

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  • The Clintidote

    I’d rather live in my car than live in New York, and millions of other members of the Normal-American Community agree.

  • Marc M

    I left NY in 2005, best move I ever made.

    Was born there and lived there 34 years.

    You don’t live in NY, you die there.

    • Tex

      Moved to Upstate NY from Texas in 2007. I am now on the search for a new job back in Texas! NY can take their commie gun laws, stupid people laws and taxes and stuff em!

  • Walt Campbell

    I thought the city fining the lady for growing a garden in her front yard was stupid. This takes bureaucratic idiocy to a whole new level. This “inspector” obviously has no knowledge of bees. Is he being punished or was he promoted to bee inspector?

    • AtillaTheHun

      What better evidence can you have that government is too big and out of control?

  • Mikey

    Once again you show your face with your spam. And once again your comment is reported.

  • Samantha

    As a beekeeper, this is really stupid. The bees will go get water WHEN they need it and WHERE they want. Putting water right in front of a hive does not mean they will get water there. You cannot control where they gather food or water. Obviously the inspector is a TOTAL IDIOT! It’s almost laughable if it weren’t so, so stupid. This is what the country is declining to??????

    • Tony

      Well Samantha, in my state we are required to water out Bee? I bet half your bees died from no water? And it you put your thinking cap on and a little effort you can control where they gather food and water.

      • Big Tony

        I just want it on the record that I don’t knows this guy Tony.

        Dah mut can’t even write a sentence.

        What’s dah world coming to, I asks ya !

        Big Tony

      • Samantha

        You are not a bee keeper. …OBVIOUSLY!

      • RICHARD

        Where did bees get their water before man decided to get it for them?

      • Nemo

        I too am a bee keeper.

        Samantha is right. The bees know what they need and will find it without the help of the Mayor. Just as a note of sanity. If the bees were in danger of running out of water where they are, they will move on. The colony will die out and the beekeeper won’t have any stock to rob of its honey.

        To Tony, I would like at say you are absolutely right too. May I offer your services in designing and creating and fitting each of the 30,000 to 60,000 bees in the hive with harness and traces so that Samantha can follow your obviously well meaning advice.

        Once they are in harness, she will be able to drive them back and forth up Broadway!
        Oh well on to something else.

  • Peter

    Why doesn’t the city employ people who will collect delinquent taxes, non payment of water bills, and fines for failure to repair decaying rental properties instead of this nonsense? Those are real debts and the city should collect them. Maybe the revenue shortfall will be a lot smaller.PRORITIZE,officials!

  • Mark Matis

    What else would one expect from New York “Law Enforcement”? After all, this is a Mere Citizen they are ticketing. It’s not as if he is an Only One or one of the Masters.

    The stench is overwhelming.

  • Garrett Baldwin
  • Ryan Mouk

    Useless charge against a public citizen. This is just a pretext to what this country is becoming. Because of the greed and bigotry of our government situations like this will continue to surface. Our government will go to any lengths to take YOUR money because they dont have any of their own anymore because they have spent it on outlandish salaries, illegal aliens, and useless wars that serve no purpose. Makes me proud to be an American when useless administrations like this force tax paying citizens to pay for the governments own inadequacies.

  • J Dance

    Michigan State University had a 100% loss of their bee (MSU is a big agricultural school) colonies this last winter, and world-wide the the bee population is down at least 40%. Bee keepers are having extreme difficulty keeping bees alive, much less profitably producing, and an IDIOT commie dictator and his gov’t want to PUNISH beekeepers?!

  • Big Bear

    So? Ignore the fine. Let them add it to their deficit.

  • Jeff

    The inspection was right in his decision to level the fine. Seriously, without government protections, how could the bees possibly have access to water? It’s not as if they ever find water out in the wild on their own. Maybe the federal government could also step in. The White House could develoip a “Bee Stimulus Program,” where each bee is issued a $1,000 check. The bees can then use the money to create jobs by hiring water suppliers to build pipelines to their hives.

    • Dave

      Yeah and someone should call Eric holder, I’m certain there is a civil rights violation here, this borders on torture of insects. Get PETA on the line, we need a cabinet level position and a Czar to get his machine rolling.

  • roccoco

    It should finally become obvious to all that it stopped being “to serve and protect” a long time ago. “Public Service” has become “How to do nothing productive, contribute nothing to society at large, and ride around in state owned vehicles, with state paid for gasoline, for as long as the system can be ‘gamed’ until ‘early retirement with 70-100% of overpaid salaries.

    Now that they have taken more than citizens can possibly continue to pay, the game is “revenue enhancement”. They will do whatever is necessary to keep their ‘free lunches’, ‘free rides’, ‘free retirements’ AND exercise the power they’ve gotten used to. They don’t know how do do anything else.

    Wake up, folks. Your tax money is supporting these shame less leeches.

    To HELL with the sham of “debt limits”. No one in society be bankrupt, and get another loan with the promise to ‘overspend’ a little less for the next ten years. What kind of fools have we all become?

    As long as we fall for their “excuses”, “reasons”, “teary eyed TV advertisements”, and “save the poor”, and “save the kids”, we will continue to be bled to death.

    • Dave

      Just keep this in the back of your mind and repeat it as often as needed.

      “A bureaucracy is an efficient and effective means whereby energy is converted into solid waste”

  • jd

    Unless you agree to cut spending (can’t do because of politics) or raise taxes (can’t do because the rich will leave and the middle class can’t afford it) this is what’s going to happen.

    • Dyscord

      Who is John Galt?

  • Mannie

    Obviously, New York City, in The Vampire State, has too many inspectors.

    • Manetti

      I am incredulous that there is any such thing as a “bee watering inspector”.

      Where do the authority and funds come from for that position?

      TLE in North Carolina

  • Anastasia Rominof

    New York city is run by socialists. It is destined to go bankrupt as it has in the past. You simply can’t spend more money than what you have, and you can’t keep squeezing the taxpayers for the benefit of slackers.

    http://www.usdebtclock.org

  • tim

    Man that stings

  • Henry

    These are the signs of a empire near the end of its reign. The banksters robbed us of trillions and now their political shills and hacks are going to tax us into oblivion. People should ask themselves this. Why is the government building a police state at the same time the ecconomy is going down the toilet? Because they know that the people are going to through a fit when they offer to fix it by hyperinflation and raid the pensions funds. The robbers plan on staying here in America and clamping down on us. I bet they plan on funding some CIA controlled radical muslims to blame it all on too so the American people will give up their retirement and be stripe searched, radiated and groped and learn to love it.

  • Bruce_Almty

    NYC should subsidize the people of NY for putting up with idiot officials.

  • Kevin Walston

    It sounds stupid,but considering bees are the polinaters of plant life,and are becoming close to endangered,I understand it completely.

    • Jon

      you understand fining some for not watering a beehive when water is provided? Really?

    • hungus

      Read the article. Again. This time, a little more closely. I mean really, really pay attention.

    • Rob

      That is not our money. All money belongs to the government and if we are lucky the government will let us borrow some of it for a little bit.

  • Cool Cat

    It’s going to take Cool Cat to save New York! http://www.CoolCatLovesYou.com

  • gjk

    NYC should be subsidizing anyone willing to keep beehives, not fining them.

  • Patrick in AZ

    I would fight that too – what is he being “warned” for? The city inspector is obviously wrong, and this guy does not need a record of a “warning” that can come back and bite him in the@ss later.

  • Andrew

    This article doesn’t describe anything about what I guess is a law that requires that people water their hives?

    • rbrandywine

      Yes, the article was lacking there. Are you supposed to water down the hive occasionally? If so, why?

  • Mark

    Good… Now even the bees will move out of New York.

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