Brooklyn's Urban Beekeepers
from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.
Sometimes laws are meant to be broken. Meet a passionate crew of illegal urban beekeepers in Brooklyn, New York working on their very first honey harvest for their restaurants. Find out why raising bees on NYC rooftops is important for Mother Earth. And be inspired to get into the illegal "bees"ness of urban beekeeping in your own backyard or rooftop. It's not only fun, but dangerous, especially if you don't like wearing bee suits! Set in a secret location in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.Thanks Liza.
Comments
It aint worth it, hipsters will never admit to being hipsters.but it's not hard to tell them apart, usually the majority of these people arent even from ny, theyre from others states who just happen to move to williamsturd or other parts of nyc , although they claim to be real new yorkers but that's a laugh. i dont know what this girl is talking about eating their vegetables they grow. when in reality they only eat organic shit.they claim it's healthy but let's be real have you seen what they look like? they look like skin and bone and appear as to having some sorta illness. so no thanks i'll pass on their food diet.
Posted by: nytag | August 18, 2009 02:54 PM
Yea HIPSTERS like you read. and molly u defitnatly sound like one of them bitches and also your stupid mid western ass comes in here as a transplant and want to turn ny into the midwest. since your obivious to stupid to understand that there are other people living in this area and you need to take them in consideration. do you happen to work in crop growing or are you some trust fund baby? if not then stfu . but since you claim that your contributing to your neighborhood then get a petetion (preferbally from natives and not hipster) and have them sign and will see if it's true. you dont speak for everyone in this neighborhood so you need to take your shit somewhere else.
Posted by: shannon | August 18, 2009 02:42 PM
"hipsters"? you people who are afraid of a completely natural insect in your neighborhood are complete idiots. trying to reintroduce honeybees into an almost entirely destroyed ecosystem (yeah, cities are great, i live here too) is only a good idea. yes, it should be regulated eventually, but in the meantime, it's necessary to bolster populations artificially, anywhere it can be done.
yeah, maybe it causes "problems" like... idiots swatting at them and getting stung? have you ever lived anywhere BUT a city? because bees don't sting you unless they are provoked. and when was the last time you saw a bee here anyway? a long time ago? exactly. that's a problem. they should be as common as flies.
if you're afraid of bees, i'm sorry. but you should probably stop eating our vegetables, fruit, and grain. because we get them from bees. and when the bees are gone, we'll need you to pollinate our food by hand. and forget flowers, anything you can't eat is not worth the effort. they'll all, eventually, go extinct.
in actuality, if you've researched the issue at all, some of the theories for the cause of the bee disease are that it's caused by ingestion of pesticides or by hives pollinating only one type of crop (such as on commercial farms) for generations. so theoretically, if we want future bee populations to be genetically diverse and strong enough to survive the disease, they should be allowed to flourish wherever they can, and not just kept by commercial beekeepers.
it already happened in China:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/141461/output/print
Posted by: molly | August 17, 2009 11:43 AM
agree, i also believe that bees should be helped ad cared for. my only concern is that they might fall into the hands of inexperienced keepers. we have to remember that this is the city and we have to be careful. this isnt like pigeon keeping which is also a thing many native new yorkers have been doing since i can remember from my childhood.imo they could have it legalized but only for a certain amount of people who do qualify for the beekeeping. like i wrote earlier we have to try to avoid incidents like the one in union square,btw does anyone know how does bees got there or what attracted them?
Posted by: joeyk | August 11, 2009 07:02 PM
Beekeeping is legalized in Paris, London, San Francisco. Not New York. You know when it the health code was written that outlawed keeping honeybees (which have been domesticated for thousands of years)? The 90's. Yeah. It was legal up until the 90's until someone decided that they were as dangerous as keeping tigers, whales, and other strange exotic creatures.
I am a beekeeper and I've only been stung once when harvesting honey, wear only a veil and have had children in close proximity of the hive during the day just to observe them. Not once in the many times I've had guests to come visit my bees have I had anyone get stung.
Beekeeping should be legalized. As it stands this city has no way to regulate the number of colonies in the city. They could be neglected, diseased, kept by inexperienced beekeepers, placed in precarious locations. If you legalize bees, the state apiary inspector can do his job to help ensure the bees in your neighborhood remain a quiet and hopefully welcome presence and not a 'nuisance' (I use the word loosely because as it has been stated before, most swarms, which most people fear, are quite docile due to the fact that they have consumed honey for the voyage to their new home).
So basically, try to have an open mind about things you have limited knowledge about. Life is a lot more interesting and excited when you open yourself up to learning.
Posted by: Megan | August 11, 2009 04:42 PM
http://outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/citybees.htm
Posted by: joeyk | August 11, 2009 03:13 PM
the only f*cktard in here is you jizzabell.acting like you contribute to this community when in reality you dont give 2 F*cks about other people in this neighborhood except your own hipster kind you hypocrite.
Posted by: shannon | August 11, 2009 01:55 PM
okay bees may be dying .but they should be handled and cared by profesional beekers and not just some fools.im glad this was brought to light so if anything weird involving bees starts to occur around this neighborhood we know who's causing it and we have the video to prove it.
Posted by: joeyk | August 11, 2009 01:41 PM
Italian bees, huh. What's next? Then come the polish bees, then puerto rican bees, then the dirty fucking hipster bees. There goes the neighborhood
Posted by: 'isfugginguy | August 11, 2009 01:25 PM
In case you hadn't heard, f***tards, bees are dying off in droves. And bees are the *only* way to pollinate a sh*t ton of the food we eat. So yeah - props to these guys for doing their part to save humanity. What the f* are you doing?
Posted by: jizzabell | August 11, 2009 10:52 AM
Take that entrance reducer out! it's too hot out for that. give those girls some air flow! ;)
Good job, fellas. Keep up the good work!
Posted by: Megan | August 11, 2009 09:06 AM
What u up to? "Nuttin'-Honey!"
Are hipsters too young to remember that cereal commercial?
Posted by: ed Burnz | August 10, 2009 11:35 PM
This is a great video. Beekeeping is a great way to help pollinate the city. Despite what many people ignorantly think, honeybees (especially the Italians) are bred to be very gentle. A swarm of bees are usually gorged on honey and generally harmless.
In the spring, the NYC beekeepers association hosts beekeeping courses. Check them out if you would like to learn more about bees in nyc:
http://www.nyc-bees.org/
Posted by: David Glick | August 10, 2009 10:01 PM
typical nyc liberals with their "green" scam. If you get stung you should try to sue them.
Posted by: joetheplumber | August 10, 2009 09:47 PM
i dont know if this is a joke or not, but when the city begins to get swarmed with thousands of bees, we'll know the characters to blame.kinda like that swarm of bees that hit that gamestop store near union square a while back
Posted by: joeyk | August 10, 2009 08:54 PM
I love the fact that they're from Roberta's. Pizza + Bees!
Posted by: Brian | August 10, 2009 07:16 PM
At first I thought this was a joke. And after watching it, I'm still not sure if it isn't.
Posted by: Andy | August 10, 2009 01:51 PM