Bustling New York City could not appear a bee-friendly place, however its high-rise rooftops and tiny gardens are buzzing with honeymakers threatened by pesticides in rural areas.
About 2.4 million Italian honeybees waited in a white van to be taken to their new properties early Friday. It was parked close to the Dakota Apartments by Central Park, the place John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono has lived since 1973.
“This is the first year that we’ve done this outside The Dakota,” mentioned Andrew Coté, president of the New York City Beekeepers Association. “We heard that Yoko likes honey.”
Coté, who based Andrew’s Honey, drove up from Georgia to ship the bees. The van held 200 wooden and display packages, every with about 12,000 bees. A gentle stream of beekeepers lined as much as decide up their 3 lb packages which price $159 or $205, relying on after they positioned their order.
“Bees are sold by weight, like cheese,” he mentioned.
Some patrons stuffed the packages in luggage, whereas Ray Sage strapped two packing containers of bees to his bicycle to experience to his hive on the Lower East Side.
“I have to just ride really slowly and carefully. Sometimes I think of it as I’m training to be Danish and I never become Danish,” he mentioned.
The variety of city beekeepers has grown shortly, with many hives now discovered on the rooftops of skyscrapers and workplace buildings, Cote mentioned. New York legalized beekeeping in 2010 and has tons of of registered hives, in response to the Department of Health.
Bee populations are in sharp decline worldwide, partly due to extreme pesticides and chemical compounds in rural areas, and a scarcity of crop selection.
New York doesn’t have this downside, making it a wholesome bee habitat, mentioned Alan Markowitz, a Bronx resident who’s a beekeeper at La Finca del Sur Community Garden, run by girls of colour.
“A third of what you put in your mouth needs a pollinator. And in the city, believe it or not, bees do well because there’s less pesticides generally,” mentioned the previous farmer. “Having a lot of variety is wonderful for bees.”