Provo • The beehive is the symbol of Utah and Brigham Young University, and beehive sculptures grace the grounds of the city library and the Provo LDS Tabernacle.

Now residents can legally put a beehive in their backyards.

An ordinance approved Tuesday night by the Municipal Council and modeled after Salt Lake City's allows residents to keep up to five beehives on lots from 5,000 square feet up to a half-acre. Those on larger properties can maintain 10 hives.

"There's a lot of advantage to people who have allergies to have access to local honey," said Councilwoman Sherrie Hall Everett. "It also beautifies, helps production of gardens. As we become more and more urban, the opportunity to keep some of those things that balance us out are important, too."

But one resident believes the ordinance should be expanded beyond honeybees to other bees that pollinate plants. Marlene Richardson said Mason bees would help counter the effects of bee colony collapse disorder, which wipes out bee colonies.

"People who live in the city don't know what [colony collapse] has done, and it has had an effect on food production," Richardson said.

Mason bees are less social and swarm less. And, she said, beekeepers can remove cocoons from hives regularly, reducing the spread of disease among the insects.

She said a study in Ogden indicated that Mason bees improve a cherry orchard's yield better than honeybees. The reason: Mason bees collect both nectar and pollen, while honeybees collect one or the other and, thus, pollinate more plants.

Richardson brought to the meeting a cardboard canister the size of a powdered drink-mix container that she said held 500 bee larvae. The bees in the canister could pollinate a 1.5-acre orchard, a job that would require 40,000 honeybees.

But Councilwoman Cynthia J. Dayton wasn't ready to open the door to more backyard beekeeping. Before doing that, she wants more information.

"I would like to hear it from a definitive source before I put it in an ordinance," she said.

Everett proposed that the council staff gather additional information and bring it back later this month.

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