Some of the workers and drones that make up the hive:
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Andrew has been keeping bees since he was a child, along with his father, Norm. He is the Founding Director of Bees Without Borders, a philanthropic endeavor to help alleviate poverty through beekeeping. A full-time college professor for the State of Connecticut, Andrew also manages a family business, Silvermine Apiary, which produces Andrew's Local Honey (sold in NYC at various Greenmarkets including Union Square on Wednesdays) and manages more colonies of honeybees in Connecticut and New York than he can remember. He divides his time between a space-challenged Lower East Side tenement apartment, and a tiny 130 year old house in Connecticut, and a few months each year in remote parts of the world like southern Uganda, the Niger Delta, Mayan villages, or Iraqi mountains, where he teaches beekeeping for Bees Without Borders. He never sleeps. |
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Bettina is a Bavarian beekeeper and princess who divides her time between Brooklyn and upstate New York. When not fretting over her bees she works as a graphic designer (she created this site) and Pilates instructor and also spends time hiking, contemplating having chickens, and planting flowers and vegetables which unintentionally serve as nourishment for the nearby deer and squirrels. Her dream is to have fruit trees with her bees to pollinate them, chickens for eggs, and a wood-burning sauna in the backyard. 2008 was her first year beekeeping and she nearly wept with pride when she harvested her first crop. | |
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Anna, a bee enthusiast for as long as she can remember, was a folklorist on her way to becoming a cultural entomologist (specializing in bees and their keepers) when she got sidetracked and became an attorney instead. She is thrilled that beekeeping is once again legal in New York City so that she can finally keep bees on her roof in Queens. When she gets a cut, she puts honey on it. When she remodeled her house, she used hexagonal tiles. She doesn't eat bananas except on air planes. And, no, she isn't your lawyer or your bees' lawyer. And nothing that she says should be construed as her giving you or your bees legal advice. | |
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Norm has kept bees since he was a younger man, and comes from a long line of beekeepers (though the line was briefly severed when the family moved from Canada to Connecticut). He is a retired Fire Lieutenant (31 years of service) and U.S. Navy veteran. He manages many beehives in Connecticut and New York, and he and his beloved bees have been seen on Martha Stewart Living, Late Night with David Letterman, and Good Morning America. He also volunteers to go overseas to places like Guatemala, Zimbabwe, and Uganda to teach beekeeping through groups like Bees Without Borders. When not found face down in a beehive or at the nude beach in the summertime (he has wisely chosen not to combine the two passions), Norm is usually doting over his two grandchildren or his wife of 42 years. | |
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Gerry keeps bees in the Northern Catskills using the top-bar hive method. She embarked on this adventure in 2007, after reading one too many seductive books about beekeeping. When she’s not hanging out around the hives, she resides in Brooklyn with her partner, Wren. There, she runs the Global Swarming Honeybees blog and struggles mightily to quell her blossoming obsession with raising chickens. She earns her keep as a freelance writer in the nonprofit sector, producing funding proposals and communications materials. Other interests include growing food, tree identification, mushrooming, bird watching, meandering in places with few people, and photographing bees and other little critters. She’s also a poet with a black belt in haiku. | |
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David, a recent Brooklyn Heights transplant, fell into beekeeping by chance. During some down time after working on the Obama campaign, David came across an article about the NYCBA's introductory course and his world was rocked. Now he knows that his favorite honey is from the Linden tree, that drones (male bees) are worthless, and he can appreciate the fine smell of honeycomb. As an avid gardener, foodie, and political junkie, he is proud to add beekeeper to his mantle. | |
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Vivian is a Chelsea denizen who came to this locale via Brooklyn, Texas, and Taiwan (in that order). An environmental lawyer by day and rock climber on weekends, Vivian became passionate about pollinators through her work at the Natural Resources Defense Council against pesticides potentially toxic to bees. She looks forward to the day in the not-too-distant future when she can don a beekeeper's veil in an effort to help lift the veil of ignorance about the conditions of food production. In the meantime, she is happy to litigate on behalf of bees. You may find her wandering around greenmarkets, cowgirl hat on head and chopsticks in hand, true to her diverse origins. |
Photo: Eric Tourneret