Bees Vs. The Big Apple
Bitter melon and tomatillo plants crowd together on a small plot. Vines curl around wire fence links, casting shadows on rows of crops. Patches of red-veined chard hug the ground near giant okra stalks. This is East New York Farms, wedged between a long line of slumping row houses and the rusted girders of an elevated train track. The community garden, one of about 600 in New York City, is located in one of Brooklyn’s roughest neighborhoods. On a recent fall day, Deborah Greig, one of the garden’s caretakers, steps calmly into a baggy, one-piece protective suit. She pulls a wide-brimmed hat and mesh veil over her head and face. "I don’t feel like an outlaw," she says, grinning. Technically, she is. Beekeeping is against the law in New York City, although that hasn’t stopped Greig and dozens like her from maintaining hives across the five boroughs — in alleyways, on rooftops, and under train tracks. Urban beekeeping is part of a growing effort by some city dwellers to reconnect with nature and the food they eat. As more residents plant community gardens and embrace activities tied to local agriculture, beekeeping is growing more popular, as well. "It’s a powerful experience to sit on the roof a few feet from the hives and just watch," says Jessica Katz, a new beekeeper. After taking a class last spring, Katz helped maintain two hives on the roof of a brownstone in Brooklyn’s trendy Park Slope neighborhood. "It’s enormously peaceful," she says. [ Story continues below. ] Beekeeping hasn’t always been illegal here. In 1999, during the Giuliani administration, honey bees mysteriously appeared in the New York City health codes on a list of prohibited animals — along with lions, pit vipers and crocodiles — that were "naturally inclined to do harm and capable of inflicting harm on human beings." "No one, not even at the Department of Health, has been able to explain to us why honey bees are on that list," says Tim Roberts, the chief of staff for City Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn. Fines can range from $200 to $2,000, although city officials say they issue them only when a complaint has been lodged. From the beginning of 2009 through Oct. 31, the New York City Health Department received 162 complaints related to harboring bees and wasps, officials said. The department wouldn’t say how many beekeepers had been cited, although The New York Times reported this summer that four summonses had been issued through the first half of 2009. Yassky introduced a bill earlier this year that would make beekeeping legal in the city again, putting New York in good company. Cities such as Denver and Los Angeles promote beekeeping as part of urban sustainability initiatives. Chicago even keeps hives on the rooftop of its city hall. Bees help support local agriculture through pollination and honey production, Roberts said. And unlike wasps, honey bees are generally docile — they don’t sting unless they are stepped on or their hive is threatened. In East New York, Greig uses the beehives to teach local kids about sustainable agriculture — a concept that may seem especially abstract for city dwellers who have little contact with agriculture or have little concept of where their food originates. As the urban agriculture coordinator at East New York Farms, Greig runs an afternoon program for local junior high and high school students. The garden is a collaborative project between local residents, regional family farmers, several educational institutions and the local United Community Center to address food issues in the community. Greig and others teach the students to cultivate and harvest crops and cook nutritious meals at the nearby community center, using the fruits of their labors. Each week, the students sell their produce at a farmer’s market a few blocks away. Last year, they took more than 15,000 pounds of produce to the market. That accomplishment would have been impossible without bees. BILLIONS FROM BEES’ LABOR "What outlawing beekeeping in New York really did was outlaw local agriculture," says Jim Fischer, a veteran beekeeper and instructor. That’s because bees are needed to pollinate most of the fruits, nuts and vegetables that people eat. Without them, it would be extremely difficult for U.S. farmers — large and small — to grow dozens of products. The list of crops pollinated by honey bees includes apples, almonds, broccoli, cucumbers, pumpkins, strawberries and soybeans. For more than 20 years, Fischer worked as a professional beekeeper, trucking a commercial fleet of nearly 600 beehives throughout Virginia, pollinating apple trees across the Blue Ridge Mountains. He gave up his small business three years ago and moved to New York, where he now instructs urbanites on the art of beekeeping. Fischer’s classes at the Gotham City Honey Co-op are in high demand — more than 40 New Yorkers completed the latest session in early spring. People come to him because they want to harvest honey and grow their own food in community gardens and backyards. Without bees to provide pollination, their crop yields would be pitiful, Fischer says. Other types of animals, including butterflies, moths, birds, beetles and bats, can pollinate plants, but bees bear the brunt of the labor. They account for anywhere from $5 billion to $15 billion dollars worth of agricultural production in the United States each year. There’s a problem, though: Bees across the country are vanishing, abandoning their hives all at once without warning, and no one is sure why. The phenomenon is known as Colony Collapse Disorder, a syndrome that first came to light about three years ago. Commercial beekeepers across the United States reported initial losses of 30 to 90 percent of their hives in 2006. Those losses have continued, hovering near 30 percent each year. These mysterious honey bee deaths cause many experts to worry about the economic stability of our current food production system, which relies so heavily on one type of pollinator. Honey bees that pollinate commercial agriculture are trucked all over the country. Large fields of nuts, fruits and vegetables are simply too vast for local honey bees to pollinate on their own. In California, the almond crop alone requires 1.3 million colonies of bees — nearly one half of all the honey bees in the United States. Urban hives probably won’t replace those losses, but the mysterious declines make many scientists and bee experts supportive of anyone who gives bees a good home. "We can’t really afford to outlaw beekeeping anywhere," says Gabriela Chavarria , the director of NRDC’s Science Center and an entomologist by training. "The reality is that honey bees are necessary for agriculture, and we need to eat." CLASHING WITH THE NATIVES In New York, though, honey bees still find themselves treated like outsiders at times. The city is home to more than 200 native bee species, whereas honey bees originated in Europe. Although they’ve been buzzing around North America for nearly 400 years, some ecologists still consider them an introduced species. Most of New York’s native bee species don’t live in social groups like hives. Instead, they make solitary nests in hollow twigs and trees or burrow into holes in the ground. That makes them far less useful for agricultural purposes, but some scientists argue that it’s native bees we ought to be worried about losing — not honey bees. Some native species are in danger of quietly going extinct, according to Kevin Matteson, an urban ecologist at Fordham University. Beekeeping is a great way for people to connect with nature in an urban setting, but rooftop and garden hives will likely do little to stem pollinator declines on the whole, he argues. "It’s like keeping chickens," he says. It’s a great way to practice local, sustainable agriculture, "but you certainly wouldn’t say that keeping chickens in the city is going to benefit bird conservation." Advocates of urban beekeeping acknowledge that it won’t solve all the problems facing bees, but they still see many benefits to their passion. "I think you really learn that nature is a little bit bigger than you," says Greig. The beekeepers of New York hope their hobby will be legalized by spring. But Yassky’s beekeeping bill has hit a wall, according to Roberts, his chief of staff. It went to the city council’s health committee over the summer, and although it encountered no opposition, the committee was preoccupied with swine flu and didn’t act on it. At the end of the year, Yassky will no longer be a councilman. When he leaves office, the urban beekeeping bill will be filed away indefinitely, unless another council member steps up to champion the cause. At East New York Farms, Greig has time to wait. Her bees have hunkered down for the winter. Regardless of the law, she’ll be eager to see the bees emerge this spring, when they and others like them will pollinate gardens across the city once again.
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