NYC abuzz: Board makes beekeeping legal

March 17, 2010|Associated Press

NEW YORK —Urban beekeepers in New York City no longer have to keep their labors a secret. The city’s health board voted yesterday to overturn a longtime ban on beekeeping within city limits.

Previously, the city’s health code had placed honeybees in the same category as about 100 other creatures deemed too hazardous to be kept in town, including ferrets and poisonous snakes. Bees do sting, after all, and their venom can be dangerous to people with severe allergies.

Yet, over the years, the ban was both little-known and lightly enforced. Some New Yorkers have secretly tended hives on rooftops and gardens for years.

And lately, bees have picked up political cachet among a growing number of green-minded folk interested in seeing organic agriculture return to big American cities. The movement to end the ban picked up after Michelle Obama had a hive installed on the South Lawn of the White House.

“The bees are a great way to start that conversation,’’ said David Vigil, a coordinator at the urban agriculture group East New York Farms!, which conducts seminars on beekeeping and has two hives at its youth garden in Brooklyn.

People interested in starting a bee colony will need to register their hives with the city, but no license will be required.

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