Coffee shop vs temple over bees

Hive in Jurong West temple destroyed by NEA after coffee shop owner's complaint
Vivien Chan, The New Paper 30 Jan 09;

A BEE hive has become a stinging issue between a coffee shop owner and officials from a temple next door.

Madam Lim Siew Choo, 60, claims that swarm of bees have been flying into her coffee shop and that four people, including herself, have been stung.

But officials from the Jin Fu Gong Temple were reluctant to destroy the hive, which is at the top of one its external pillars. They said they do not believe in killing indiscriminately because the bees are harmless.

Madam Lim eventually contacted the National Environment Agency (NEA). Officers from the agency investigated the matter and found a bee hive within the temple's compound.

An NEA spokesman said that NEA officers advised the temple authorities to engage a pest control operator to destroy the bee hive. The temple authorities complied, and the bee hive was destroyed on 19 Jan.

Madam Lim said that about three weeks ago, hundreds of bees would fly into her Jurong West St 91 coffee shop, throughout the day.

She said: 'The bees terrorised my customers by buzzing around them. Some even landed on their cups or drink cans. It would get worse around lunchtime, when there are more drink cans on the tables.'

Two weeks ago, she decided that enough was enough when four people, including herself, got stung.

She said: 'I was waving off some bees that were irritating my customers when I got stung. I was not the only one who was attacked. The bees attacked small children too.'

According to Madam Lim, a 4-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy were stung.

Luckily, no one fell sick from the sting. All four who were stung self-medicated and suffered nothing more than a swelling.

The fourth person who was stung was a coffee shop helper.

Madam Lim said that two years ago, a similar incident occurred, and she had called the NEA. It traced the bees to a bee hive to the Taoist temple next door.

She said that the temple complied when told to remove the hive then.

However, she added that after this incident, relations between her and the temple officials began to sour.

She claimed that a few months later, when she tried to enter the temple to offer incense, she was chased away. This was disputed by the temple officials.

That was why she refrained from pointing fingers at the temple this time. She said she decided to check her own coffee shop first.

Checked the roof

On 9 Jan, her husband climbed onto the roof of their coffee shop but did not find any hive there.

Then, that night, one of Madam Lim's workers saw the bees flying back into the temple. The worker told Madam Lim and she informed the NEA.

Her actions upset temple officials.

One of them, Mr Goh, in his late 60s, said that he had never quarrelled with Madam Lim.

'We didn't even have the chance to discuss or disagree because she went straight to NEA,' he said.

He said that there was no need to destroy the hive because the bees do not attack unless they were provoked.

Clearly upset when asked how he felt about the bees, he said: 'We believe that we should not harm anything that has life. These bees have been here for many years. Some of the devotees even said that the bees bring luck.'

However, he said that if the authorities insisted that the bee hive had to be removed, he would not oppose it.

An NEA spokesman said that the responsibility to remove bee hives lies with the owner or stakeholder of the premises or structures where the beehives are found.

If the owner refuses to remove the hive, the Director-General of Public Health may, in writing, require the owner or occupier of the premises to destroy the bees at his own expense. The owner could face a fine not exceeding $5,000 should he fail to comply.

When The New Paper visited the coffee shop last Friday morning, there were no bees buzzing about, though some customers said that they had seen the bees on their previous visits.

When we visited the temple, there was a different and smaller bee hive, about the size of a child's fist, outside the temple's compound.

That same evening, NEA activated its own pest control operator-contractor to destroy the second hive.

A customer at the coffee shop, who declined to be named, said that he saw the bees on a previous occasion but did not feel very threatened because he sat a distance away.

He added: 'If they attack, then the hive should be removed.'