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Sting operation: Hive hoarder busted in Queens
In the strangest — and only — urban agriculture hoarding tale we've come across, a Queens man is busted for having 45 unregistered beehives housing 3 million honey-producing insects in his backyard.
Wed, Aug 29 2012 at 11:37 AM
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Photo: tastybit/Flickr
Ever since the ban on beekeeping was lifted in New York City in March 2010, the area has emerged as the one of buzziest acts of urban agriculture to hit the five boroughs since hydroponic window farming and Brooklyn chickening.
Last week, a 58-year-old Queens resident named Yi Ge Chen came under fire for taking the latest “urban agricultural must-have” to an entirely new — and terrifying — level. Citing public health concerns, authorities descended on the backyard and driveway of Chen's modest Corona home and confiscated 45 unregistered hives containing an estimated 3 million diseased bees. To put the number into perspective, that’s more bees than the number of people living in Queens.
As you may have surmised, Chen isn’t your average Mast Brothers chocolate bar-chomping, Williams-Sonoma-shopping urban apiarist with hoarder tendencies. Chen was a seasoned beekeeper in his native China. After his move to the States, he picked up the habit again in a big way just two years ago. “That’s all I want to do,” a devastated Chen told the Daily News after the extensive raid. Chen also admitted that “It's gotten out of hand. I don’t have the time or resources to do this."
Apparently so. “They’re a health hazard,” explained Anthony "Tony Bees" Planakis, the NYPD’s top beekeeping detective (yes, that appears to be his actual job title, and he's had a very busy summer). “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Even Andrew Cote, president of the New York City Beekeepers Association was taken aback by the honey-drenched scene. He tells the Daily News: “All rules of good urban beekeeping and of common sense have been ignored here. I thought I’ve seen it all in urban beekeeping and this surprised me.” He added to the NY Post: “There was literally no way for the neighbors to get out of their homes without facing a swarm of bees.”
The hives have since been transferred to an “undisclosed location” (probably not the Waldorf-Astoria) and Chen could face fines of up to $2,000 per hive. NYC beekeepers don’t need a license but are required to register each hive with the Health Department. And it get's weirder: In addition to stashing several more hives behind his sushi restaurant in nearby Astoria, Chen is also accused of selling 1,200 pounds of honey diluted with corn syrup to a local bakery to the tune of $6,000.
So who, you may wonder, tipped off the authorities to Chen's extreme beekeeping activities? A terrified neighbor? A concerned family member? Nope, it was a mortified real estate agent working with Chen to sell his home.
With that, an essential real estate tip: When attempting to sell your house, you should probably do something about the 3 million "pet" bees living in your backyard and driveway.
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"3 million diseased bees"...yet no where in the article does it state why the bees were classified as diesased.
Instead of trying to be witty - write the facts first.
Oooh, 3,000,000 bees, have they ever seen the size of bees? Enough bs ordinances, let the guy live his life.
They are allowing him to live his life, nobody is killing him. They are just impeding him from continuing the lunacy. There's no need for him to be keeping 3 million bees anywhere inside of the 5 boroughs. That's just behavior that warrants a psychological evaluation.
45 hives is a lot! Even in a suburban setting that would be a good number. It would be a full time job just tending them. There is disease mentioned. I wonder if the disease caused them to keep swarming--thus he would build another hive and that is how it got out of hand? (I really don't know much about beekeeping--I've just read several memoirs that included beekeeping.)
Couldn't agree more with the misrepresentation by the media.