New Yorkers are swarming to urban beekeeping since a ban on the hobby was lifted in 2010. According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, there are almost 100 registered beekeepers in the city.
The bug has even spawned a week-long festival.
Honey Week, originally Honey Fest, began four years ago as an educational event in Rockaway, Queens, and has expanded to include apiary tours, honey tastings, and honey extraction demos across four boroughs.
Steve Rogenstein, co-producer of Honey Week and a beekeeper himself, owns a hive that sits atop a storage container at Edgemere Farm in Rockaway. To get people interested in beekeeping and honey, Rogenstein likes to explain that every container of honey has a complex flavor that can be appreciated like wine.
“From jar-to-jar, honey has totally different taste profiles, smell qualities, viscosity, and colors,” says Rogenstein. “It just shows that honey, like wine, is absolutely unique from season to season, location to location, and from hive to hive.”
Maribel Araujo, the owner of Caracas Arepa Bar and one of the vendors at the festival, enjoys the boost to her business as the summer comes to an end. But what she is most grateful for is “that last year, at Honey Fest, no one got stung. Not even once.”
