You wouldn’t think BART assisted the plant life cycle in any way, yet the agency has found itself helping local honeybees — an insect that’s key to growing crops — through relocation instead of extermination.
When beehives are found in stations and on other BART property, they’re considered a potential hazard to workers and riders, and the agency has to remove them. BART Facilities Superintendent Glen Eddy said it’s an ongoing concern.
"We get reports of beehives in some weird spots in the BART system,” Eddy said. “They’ve been in our train yards and even on the electrified third rail that powers our trains.”
The number of hives varies throughout the year, but hives are found most often in spring, with hives being reported almost daily.
That’s when Khaled Almaghafi gets the call.
Almaghafi is the local beekeeper BART has tasked for the last five years with removing the hives and safely relocating their increasingly vulnerable insect inhabitants — while also getting some good honey out of the deal.
“BART came along and said, ‘Do you remove bees alive?’ I said, ‘Of course I do,’” said Almaghafi, who has tended bees in the Bay Area for nearly three decades, and now takes care of, and harvests from, over a hundred beehives that he keeps in Oakland and Richmond. Almaghafi is paid per job and keeps the bees and honey he finds.
For years, he’s been selling local honey, beeswax candles and honey-based remedies from his store in Oakland on Telegraph Avenue. Jars of honey are proudly displayed on honeycomb-shaped shelves that line the windows and walls.
Behind the counter, there’s a photo of Almaghafi covered in bees from jaw to chest. He said it was taken at a beekeeping conference in Oregon, where he was one of the few men brave enough to wear a bee beard.
BART found Almaghafi after an extensive search of service providers who could safely remove bees.
