Results tagged “bees”

Though it’s not the most glamorous of the environmental issues, colony collapse is a problem. Bee colonies, responsible for pollinating a significant portion of the world's food supply, are slowly dying out. Hell, even Haagen-Dazs is getting behind the issue. So what are three culinarily-inclined New Yorkers to do? Start their own bee colony in Brooklyn! Jon Feldman (general manager at Frankies Spuntino), Brandon Hoy and Eddie Diaz (co-owner and manager of Roberta’s, respectively) have been keeping bees on their roofs in Williamsburg and Carroll Gardens in an attempt to boost their population and beautify the city’s flowerboxes. There’s just one problem: it’s illegal.

Yesterday wasn't just unusual because the sun actually came out—on the Upper East Side, residents saw 8,000-10,000 bees emerge (video) from a hive on Lexington between 80th and 81st Streets! The Post claims that the bees "had surreptitiously moved into the neighborhood sometime in the past month and managed to build a giant hive in a tree... without anyone noticing." Gasp—Upper East Siders, your nosy neighbor quotient is slipping! Anyway, the swarm got moving because the queen bee went out for a flight around 4 p.m., and naturally her loyal "subjects" followed her. An onlooker said, "It was a three foot column of bees." Enter the NYPD's resident beekeeper (who knew?) Police Officer Anthony Planakis who declared it "one of the biggest swarms I've ever seen" and promised to take them "to a farm in Connecticut to pollinate." Last month, a swarm of bees were the main attraction in Union Square.

If only Game Stop stocked beekeeper outfits in addition to video games: Yesterday afternoon around 2 p.m., thousands of bees decided to hang out outside the store in Union Square. A "bee watcher" told WABC 7, "When I got here, there was already like a thousand bees in there." Employees were left to close the store—with themselves inside and the bees outside—and one worker put up a sign, "Look! ... closed due to bee infestation."

Serious Eats reports that City Council member David Yassky has introduced a bill to set up a licensing process for urban beekeepers. Currently illegal—thanks to an archaically-worded health code subsection—beekeeping in the city thrives in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” sort of way; an excellent Edible Manhattan article published last fall describes the outlaw subculture for all of its charms. Last fall, author Rowan Jacobsen told us that more rooftop buzzing in the city could “generate quite a bit of its honey needs,” not to mention a really local sweetener. In the meantime, there’s a NYC Beekeeping meetup group and a petition you can sign. There’s even a $75, twelve-hour, soup-to-nuts urban beekeeping course (going on now, with another starting next month) administrated through the New York City Beekeepers Association.

Hope drivers had their windows closed on the NJ Turnpike, or at least some Benadryl: Apparently a huge swarm of bees--thousands--converged on various vehicles near Cherry Hill, NJ. The Turnpike Authority thinks "a beekeeper's beehive...fell beside the highway." The TA is looking for a beekeeper to deal with the situation.

The Gothamist Newsmap indicated an "unusual incident"at 75th Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan yesterday. The Emergency Service Unit officers responded, but they reportedly "hung back a bit" because the unusual incident turned out to be a swarm of bees!