After agreeing to keep chickens out of the city limits, Moose Jaw City Hall is now re-considering amendments to the animal bylaw that would also prevent honey bees from being kept.

As the bylaw was about to be approved this week, Samantha Millard made a passionate speech about her hobby saying we need to promote the honey bee population in urban centres because they help with pollination.

"It's very unlikely to find any wild populations within the city limits and furthermore, honey bees outside the city are not going to fly (into) the city for pollen because there are too many easy crops for them to forage in, there's plenty of canola out there and no reason for them to come here."

Millard is part of the Regina and District Bee Club and has been researching her own hive for Moose Jaw when she learned of the changes to the bylaw.  She understands why bees may have been included in the list of forbidden creatures but wondered why there was no discussion about it, like there was for chickens.  She says she requested information from City Hall but received a packet that talked all about chickens, but didn't include a single paragraph about honey bees.

"New York, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and closer to home Saskatoon and Regina allow honey bees withing city limits." said Millard. "I understand there's a lot of misinformation out there regarding bees... honey bees are not a nuisance, they are naturally docile as they are breed to be and it is very rare that a bee will sting someone."

Councillors were quick to accept a motion to re-evaluate the bee keeping portion of the animal bylaw, although that doesn't guarantee bees will be removed from the prohibited list.