I’ve debated with myself long and hard over the story I’m about to tell you. It really zeroes in on a personal situation I faced with an HOA bully. I swore I would keep the story to myself until I read today’s article about America’s tragic loss of honey bees. Forty percent of all honey bees in the country died last year. Forty percent!
(link to 40% loss of honey bees in just one year)
You cannot imagine how important honey bees are to our agriculture and our very survival as a species. Man just can’t do what bees do for us. Without bees there is no produce in your grocery store. None!
Now, my personal story. I own some acreage in Colorado adjacent to a Homeowners Association. Several years ago, a teenager who raises bees and produces honey for a hobby asked if he could place a half dozen bee hives on my property. There’s no way I would have refused him. For several years the hives were thriving and pollinating vegetation for miles around.
Last year I was away at a publishers’ conference when I got an angry call from a typical HOA bully. He demanded I remove the hives immediately. Mystified at his sudden rage I asked him why? Believe it or not, this guy said “Your bees are drinking from my wife’s pond!”
This is not a joke. Despite the fact that there are several bee keepers within a four mile radius of this property, MY bees were drinking from his pond!
I guess I shouldn’t have ignored him because a few days later every single one of the bee hives was dead. Stone cold dead in just one night. I seriously doubt they died that suddenly from natural causes.
And let me get this straight: You don’t even live in this HOA, right?
So what right do they have to hassle you, as long as no harm comes to HOA property?
I think it’s a stunning “coincidence” that the honey bees died suddenly, given the circumstances you describe.
You’re correct. I formerly lived in this HOA, but my property where I now live is immediately adjacent to this HOA. The bee hives were about 200 feet away from this neighbor.
This sounds like when my mother’s neighbor threatened to cut my mother’s tree down because it shaded his yard. Sometimes we just have to live with what our neighbors do. Bees drinking from his pool? Seriously? He had nothing else to worry about? What a sadistic busy body.
I’m speechless and heartsick after reading this. Once I digest this horrific event, I know I’ll be beyond enraged!
Right now, I need a good cry and meditation.
I never cease to be stunned by the maniacal savagery some ‘humans’ feel entitled to act upon.