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The Beekeeper Next Door
The New York Times reports that Mike Barrett does not have much of a yard at his two-story row house in Astoria, Queens. But that fact has not kept him from his new hobby of beekeeping — he put the hive on his roof. When it was harvest time this fall, he just tied ropes around each of the two honey-filled boxes in the hive, and lowered them to the ground.
Barrett loaded the boxes into his car and set off for a commercial kitchen in Brooklyn. There, along with other members of the New York City beekeeping club, he extracted his honey, eventually lugging home 40 pounds of the stuff.
Until last spring, Barrett would have been breaking the law and risking a $2,000 fine for engaging in his sticky new hobby. But in March, New York City made beekeeping legal, and in so doing it joined a long list of other municipalities, from Denver to Milwaukee to Minneapolis to Salt Lake City, that have also lifted beekeeping bans in the last two years. Many towns, like Hillsboro, Ore., have done the same, and still other places, like Oak Park, Ill., and Santa Monica, Calif., are reconsidering their prohibitions.
Nationwide, hives are being tucked into small backyards and set alongside driveways; even the White House has installed some. Beekeeping classes are filling up quickly, and new beekeeping clubs are forming at the same time that established ones are reporting large jumps in membership.
One force behind this rise of beekeeping is the growing desire for homegrown and organic food. Another, more complex one is the urge to stem the worrisome decline in the nation’s bee population.
Photo by wildxplorer.
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Cindy Hawkins on December 14th, 2010 2:16 pm
My Green Market neighbor/longtime apiarist (that’s a ‘Bee Person’) Dave Graves from Berkshire Berries and I often talk about the overall decline in hives. And there’s something even more ominous: it is called hive collapse: often now, for no obvious reason, a beehive will just close up shop. If you looked inside you’d find dead bees. Climate change? Parasites? Cellphone towers messing up the signals bees need to navigate? Whatever it is, ongoing hives going kaput are a chilling prospect. Bees support much of the agriculture which produces food on our planet – by pollinating. So, anyone who takes up beekeeping, and looks after hives, for the love of it, or for profit deserves a real huzzah.
Donna White on December 15th, 2010 11:25 am
I am not an “organic only” person, however, honey is one product that I go straight to the “Bee Person” for. I believe in honey’s healing and overall health qualities. Every time I read about the peril that keeps affecting bees, the domino effect rattles around in my brain. No bees, no pollination, no fruit, no natural vitamins from fruit. And no honey. Daunting. My eternal gratefulness to all beekeepers and the cities that are changing ignorant laws to accommodate the rooftop and backyard hobbyists.
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