Santa Rosa 9-year-old Nicholas Bard is a walking encyclopedia of honeybee facts.

A colony needs 30 to 60 pounds of honey to survive each winter. The average lifespan of bees is about two weeks. And individuals hold distinct jobs, from cleaners to foragers, during their life cycle.

Nicholas knows how much bees contribute to California’s agricultural economy and the alarming rate at which the population is declining.

He’s picked up that knowledge over the past three years while raising his own colony in his family’s Proctor Terrace backyard.

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But earlier this year, the Bard family was hit with a surprising notice that threatened to bring the whole thing to a halt.

Santa Rosa code enforcement officers in an April 16 complaint accused the family of operating a beekeeping

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