Rooftop Bees in Brooklyn
I always feel that Brooklyn is kind of like an East Coast outpost of Seattle. They’ve got a huge local food scene and tons of vegetable gardeners and bike commuters. So I was excited when Flower, who makes candles for Big Dipper Wax Works, sent me this short video documentary about three urban beekeepers, John Feldman, Brandon Hoy, and Eddie Diaz, who set up an apiary on a Brooklyn rooftop.
Like the folks over at Bastille, these guys are all in the restaurant business and they understand that roofs are a vastly underutilized resource in cities. So, they installed their hives this past April, and by the looks of the background scenery, planted up a rooftop kitchen garden.
Keeping bees is illegal in New York City, but hopefully projects like this one will convince the powers that be that pollinators have a place—and play an important role—in urban environments.
The documentary was put together by Liza de Guia of foodcurated.com. You can check out more of her videos, including one about a rooftop farm in Brooklyn, at Vimeo.




Love the Brooklyn beekeepers! Thanks for posting this!
September 4th, 2009 at 11:43 amOh my GOSH, I am thrilled that not only you plugged Big Dipper Waxworks, but also recognized the amazing (and exciting) work these guys are doing on Brooklyn. I am so in love with people being interested in the health of bees. BEE well, BEE strong and BEE alive!!
September 4th, 2009 at 10:43 pm[...] http://www.digginfood.com/2009/09/rooftop-bees-in-brooklyn/ [...]
September 8th, 2009 at 1:06 pmThis is brilliant! Thanks for sharing it. I guess they are far enough north not to worry about killer bees any time soon in such a dense urban environment? Also, I wonder whether the bees or the honey are affected by the pollution in NYC? It looks like they have a gorgeous rooftop garden for the bees to find flowers in right away

January 11th, 2010 at 7:14 pmJeanell´s last blog ..Kitchen Medicine