Legalize It

NYC Public Hearing on Bee Code

1999 had a lot going on, but most importantly, it was the year the honeybee, fuzzy little apis mellifera, was classified by Rudi Guiliani as an animal "naturally inclined to do harm," along with pit vipers and komodo dragons, and forbidden to be kept by anyone within city limits.

This past Wednesday, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (yes, Mental Hygiene... a whole other matter in itself...) held a public hearing to discuss City Council member David Yassky's bill to remove our buzzy buddy from the dreaded list included in Article 161 of the city's Health Code. This would make beekeeping legal in NYC as early as April. (Just in time for aspiring beekeepers to take the plunge!)

There were many honeybee supporters at the hearing, and not a naysayer in sight. Even the four members of the panel seemed pro-bee. (Or at least pro-local honey.) Arborists, activists, and bee lovers spoke passionately about the virtues of the honeybee. Of the bajillion points made about how rad bees are, the following ones stuck with me:

1. Most New Yorkers have heard of the Parks Department's Million Trees initiative, with its self-explanatory goal. (At this moment, they're at 315,678.) Said million trees begin their lives as million saplings outside city limits, where they're pollinated by million bees. Most of the initiative's trees are hardwood, a species that relies heavily on all kinds of bees for pollination. These trees need bees!

2. According to The Great Pollinator Project of 2009, bee watchers recorded a total of 226 species of bees in the city. 54 species were found in the Bronx, while 58 were found in Central Park alone, and 59 in Prospect Park! It's not like we live in a bee-free zone. The honeybee's illegality is arbitrary (226 species except apis mellifera??) and disadvantageous (no local honey, fewer flowers, less food grown within city limits, polluted air, etc.)

3. The legalization of beekeeping would create more "green jobs," including what one speaker referred to as "Bee Rangers" in public parks. Oh, how I'd love to be able to call myself a Bee Ranger! (Maybe I will, informally...)

4. Like so many New Yorkers, our trees are stressed out. The cure? You guessed it: BEES!

5. This past January 21, Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth, a Philly native who discovered the concept of "bee space" and invented the hives in which my bees live, would have celebrated his 200th birthday. Happy Belated Birthday, Rev!

Since the public hearing was a seeming lovefest for bees, I'd say there's a pretty good chance this stupid law will be eradicated.

But Article 161 dictates the city's policies on all animals, and much more contentious than the bee code was the debate over carriage horses in the city's parks and streets, another piece up for reconsideration. Man, was that heated. A woman in the audience shouted "Shame on you!" during somebody's speech. Without going into detail, as I am unschooled in all things horses, I will say this: I do not think carriage horses should remain on 59th Street. Just two days before the hearing I was walking on Central Park South past all the horses, with their pastel-colored carriages equipped with blankets and drivers half-heartedly suggesting rides to suspected tourists, when I passed a beautiful white equine with a big, silly, blue feather sticking up above her head. The feather must have been intended to separate that particular horse from the rest, and served its purpose: the white horse looked even more miserable than the others, seemingly aware of her forced buffoonery. I felt the kind of shared embarrassment that one experiences watching unwitting participants on reality television, particularly the young children of abhorrent "characters" (or more aptly, "spectacles.") The blue-feathered horse reminded me of a scene in Follow That Bird in which Big Bird is captured, painted blue, and stuck in a cage at the circus. (I trust at least one of you will remember this reference.) Embarrassing costumes are the very least of the carriage horses' woes. For details on the horrible tragedies involving NYC carriage horses, and to support the ban on horse-drawn carriages in NYC, click here.

The final decision on bees will be made in March... come on, New York! We're practically the only city in the world to outlaw beekeeping! We want bees!

If you haven't already, sign Just Food's petition to legalize beekeeping in NYC.

Sustainable Weekend

A sustainable weekend looks like this:

1. Friday night farm dinner, eaten with "stranger." All produce picked in Red Hook only hours earlier.

a. Massaged kale (spoken in child-molester-voice)

b. Fresh cukes with garlic-basil yogurt sauce

c. Collards and black eyed peas

d. Red Stripe

e. Greens

2. Saturday Farmer's Market in Red Hook

a. Purple kale and Hakeuri turnips

b. Ruby Chard, aka Eliza Chard:

c. non-Funyon onions. (Funyons are on my top-10 Grossest Foods list because they smell like feet, feel like like eczema, sound like styrofoam, etc.)

3. Free reggae Concert in Central Park on Sunday:

a. Play with last night's pinata winnings! Don't let these chotchkies go to waste!

1. Pretend they are members of your army, fighting to save the planet!

2. Imagine what it would be like to fall in love with a small yellow soldier.

3. Marvel at the self-restraint you've demonstrated in withstanding the urge to pull the parachute's string. (2 days and counting!)

b. Watch the happy people enjoying a free summer concert.

c. Get inspired to dig around Craigslist for size 8.5 roller skates!

d. Pump Up The Jam:

4. Ruminate about American consumerism:

5. Don't let the rain get you down! Instead, set up still lives involving reusable milk cartons, fresh produce, and antique books!

Honey Dreams

Although beekeeping is the main subject around which all posts (tangentially) gather, this blog also aims to document my shift (and that of my friends) toward a more sustainable life.

Nowadays, the idea of sustainability is inextricably linked to environmentalism. For some strange reason, however, I've always been more compelled by the concept of sustainability than that of environmentalism. Sustainability seems to speak to the human aspect of environmentalism by appealing to our inherent selfishness: how do we benefit, as opposed to the Earth? Because let's face it, many people (especially people in 1st world countries) don't see the connection between the Earth's health and our own.

Environmentalism sounds hard. It conjures images of lugging out the recycling and the garbage. It implies more work. What is so incredibly pathetic about this perspective is that the "work," in reality, involves thought more than physical labor. But people, and I'm talking about us 'Mericans, don't like to think. The mere consideration of the possible material of an empty container of yogurt proves to be too taxing for certain individuals. "As a tax paying 'Merican, I've got the right to throw this here yogurt container wherever I see fit." It is almost as if we feel entitled to not think. (And by "we," I mean "they." However, I am attempting to avoid "they" statements, as I do not want to define "them.")

Society has taught us that if we need something, we should buy it. But what if we don't want to buy it, or can't buy it, as is becoming the case for more and more people? Instead of looking around and asking oneself, "How can use what I already have to get what I want?" most people will either wait until they can buy it, or decide they don't need it, after all. But we're more creative than that...

I have always had a visual image of my "ideal life" in my mind. This image has drastically changed throughout the years, and continues to tweak itself as time rolls out. It probably changes imperceptibly from second to second. Today, my ideal life involves bees, obviously; lots of all different types of hives all over property that I own. This same property will be home to many fruit trees and and vegetable gardens with tons of herbs, a pumpkin/melon patch, an expanse of wildflowers that morphs into its own conception of "beautiful." On the property, there will be an old house that needs a lot of work done. I'll live there with my true love, and we'll spend our days fixing the house, attending to our gardens and hives, providing fresh produce to our community, and trading what we have for what we don't have. Building the life that we want with our hands, essentially; self-sufficient and self-employed. The house will be filled books, laughter, and dogs. We'll grow our own indulgences, and invite friends and family to cook and/or enjoy them with us.

I could go on, but I'm realizing that the more detailed I get, the more I remove myself from society, and the more unrealistic my "ideal life" becomes. (It snowballs into commune territory.) And I'm not trying to make this unrealistic or unreachable: I am convinced, today, that this life is completely viable, and it is up to me to make the choices that will get me there.

The new bees, that will reside in my parents' backyard in Connecticut, will produce honey that I intend to sell. This will be my first entrepreneurial endeavor of any kind, except for the odd lemonade stand and the "Babysitters Club" I formed with 5 other girls one summer, inspired by the book series of the same title. (I was Claudia, the artistic, popular, half-Asian fashion plate who hid candy in fake books and dealt with her grandmother Mimi's stroke in the 7th book of the series, Claudia and Mean Janine.)

It is my first foray into semi self-employment, the initial step in what I hope will be a lifelong journey. I want to be judged on my product rather than my personality, whether the product is the honey from my bees or my words themselves. This first year will be more of an experiment than anything, since I'm learning absolutely everything as I go. It is exciting, strange, and unexpected. The unexpectedness makes it slightly intimidating, but I figure, what do I have to lose? Following this line of reasoning, I have also decided to pickle and sell my cukes this year, whose abundance last summer was overwhelming. (It was possible to subsist on cucumber soup* alone for a period of about 2 weeks.)

*Cukes, plain yogurt, mint, scallions, chicken broth, fresh garlic for spice, blended til smooth, chilled, with salt and pepper to taste. The most satisfying food/drink on a hot, humid day in July. Best when consumed outdoors, preferably near pool and/or beach.

Anyway, instead of buying jars to bottle these things, I want to use existing jars. Why buy new jars when I've got, you've got, we've got old jars right here? How much energy does it take to melt that glass into a different-looking jar?

A sweet, sweet reverie...

...honey housed in all different shapes and sizes of recycled jars and bottles, labeled by hand with little flowers drawn all over, maybe a recipe tag for something outrageous like honey milkshakes; each bottle unique; I'm dreaming up names: C's Bees'? Sweet C Honeybee? Strange varieties of pickled cucumber, like round, yellow, Lemon Cukes and heirloom White Wonders in spatial and tactile disharmony, each one distinct but strangely similar; yellow, green, brine and vinegar and garlic...

The sight of these things existing in reality would give me great pleasure. Photo shoot-worthy. Hopefully the future will unroll in such a fashion that my visions will materialize. If they do, or if they don't, at least I'll be writing about it.

Save the jars and bottles that you can imagine housing our future honey and/or pickles, if you'd like to contribute to this honey/pickle/heirloom tomato* venture. Of course, you know who you are.

*I have over 15 healthy-looking Cherokee Purple tomato plants that I grew from seed in my apartment. This weekend, they'll be making the move outdoors, to the quiet sanctuary of my parents' backyard (with the new bees!) Perhaps a small stand in a Farmer's Market? I think so.

On another sustainability note, its composting time! Now that the summertime bounty is beginning to crowd produce isles everywhere, we've decided to start a worm farm up here at the homestead in Wash Heights. You can buy worms (and compost) at the Greenmarket at the Community Compost:

They sell a "worm condo" to house the worms, but we're just using an old plastic box for storing clothes and stuff. Anything with a top that you can poke holes in is fine. It you're a gardener (or know one!) there's no reason you shouldn't compost: its easy, cheap, and natural. nyccompost.org has great info. You can even bring your food scraps to places in your hood where someone is composting, even if you don't want to. Seriously, people want your food scraps badly.

There are tons of gorgeous herbs and tomato plants for sale right now... both of which grow well in containers if you're in the city (and have enough sun.) For those of you who have had the misfortune of never smelling the fresh, earthy scent of a healthy tomato plant, RUN to the nearest farmer's market and at LEAST stick your nose into its depths and inhale with gusto; even better to buy one and savor its scent, admire its stature, and devour its fruit all summer long.

Now is the time, you would-be, could-be gardeners: Make something grow!