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Jun. 26 2009 - 1:04 am | 11 views | 2 recommendations | 12 comments

NYC Honey: Flavored by Flora or Fumes?

By NADIA ARUMUGAM
NEW YORK - MAY 30: An urban beekeeping couple...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

If you happen to have been downtown on Tuesday you may have noticed a certain buzz in the air. More than a dozen honeybee enthusiasts swarmed around City Hall in support of a city bill to legalize beekeeping in Gotham. Honey lovers in the city are currently prohibited from keeping hives by the same NYC health code that stops us from having venomous snakes, ferrets and elephants (!!?) as roomies in our high-rise walk-ups. Of course, everyone knows that you’ve got something coming if you try and stop a New Yorker from doing what they damn well please. So it’s no surprise that a band of renegade beekeepers have been nurturing hives incognito in rooftops and community gardens throughout the city for years now. Still, I guess they figure it would be nice to do it without the threat of a hefty $2,000 fine looming over their veiled headgear.

Now, I’m all for allowing folk to keep a few – alright 20,000 – little critters in a window box if that’s their thing and boy do I love a trickle of the sweet amber nectar drizzled on my pancakes. But, I still wonder how safe and appetizing honey produced from bees that sup on flora intoxicated by the aromatic fumes of the FDR would be? Maybe I’m just a deluded romantic (is there any other type?) but I like to imagine the stripy fellows flying over grassy meadows, dipping into bubbling brooks and poking their heads into the unsullied flower heads of the countryside as they concoct my ambrosia.

Much like wine, the flavors, aroma and even the aesthetics of honey are entirely reflective of terroir or the environment in which it was produced. Bees landing on avocado blooms yield a dark, unctuous almost buttery brew while bees lighting on orange blossoms produce a light, floral, fruity honey. But say those orange blossoms stood in the middle of a polluted metropolis, what impact would this have? Here the experts stand divided.

According to a 2006 survey conducted by French beekeepers’ association Unaf, urbanite bees are not only healthier and produce more honey than their rural kin but they also avoid the detrimental effects of pesticide in crops and – here’s the biggie – they filter out urban pollution.

A ringing endorsement from the French, but the Lithuanians protest in a 2006 paper titled Honey as an Indicator of Environmental Pollution. Researchers from Lietuvos veterinarijos akademija, the Lithuanian Veterinary Academy, discovered that honey produced in the Kaunas city territory contained significantly higher traces of heavy metals than honey from surrounding rural areas. They also concluded that the heavy metals which included barium and lead were indicative of higher pollution levels in the city.

LONDON - JULY 22: Jonathan Miller, sweet groc...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

On that note…the jury is out. Still, the sting of possibly polluted urban honey hasn’t dampened enthusiasm for the stuff beyond Gotham’s gates. In Greater London, UK, where beekeeping is legal, there are over 2000 bee-entrepreneurs, according to government estimates. In an article published in The Independent in 2006, the paper reports that “demand for London honey outstrips supply”. In May of this year, grocers to the Queen, Fortnum & Mason, started retailing honey produced by bees homed in hives on the roof of the buzzing Piccadilly store. Pollen from chestnut and lime trees as well as a plethora of Hyde Park’s finest blooms contribute to an aromatic, floral honey. According to sweet grocery buyer Jonathan Miller, “The honey will taste much richer than that from the country because the bees are feeding on such a rich diet.”  Mmmm… is  ”rich” a euphemism for something noxious and toxic perhaps? Still, if devotees want to keep a keen eye on how Fortnum’s hives are faring they can check out the web cams on the store’s website.

Now there’s an idea if the bill doesn’t go down well in City Hall: virtual beekeeping. 

If any secret city beekeepers happen upon this post, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Better still, if you have a spare spoonful of the golden gloop, I’m open to taste tests.

 
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  1. collapse expand
    4:52 pm on 06/26/09
    libtree09
    libtree09

    Hey WTF, I used to live in Brooklyn, the finest city in da world, it was long time ago, so’s it maybe New Yorkers have gone soft, all squishy like WTF you callit, a jelly fish, yeah, but who the hell cares what they say at city hall, they’re all bums, them mortadellas, what you serious? They can all va fa napole. Whatda they tawking about? Every cafone in the city is got a friggin’ pigeon coop on the roof. Whadda ya want flying ’round ya head? A shittin’ bird or friggin bug? Whatsamatterwityou?

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