Q: We live in a building on the Upper West Side. Bees from an unregistered bee hive at a neighboring building are getting through our window screens and into the apartments. I’m all for urban rooftop beekeeping, but the location of this hive — on a relatively low roof surrounded by much taller buildings — is problematic. I called 311 last summer, which referred me to the city’s Department of Health. It came out for an inspection in November, but the hives are now active again and the situation persists. What action we can take?
A: We’ll start with the most obvious solution, which has likely occurred to you. “In the short term, your best defense may be the simplest: a better screen,” said Andrew Coté, owner of Andrew’s Honey and president of the New York City Beekeepers Association.
It is legal to keep honeybee hives in the city, but beekeepers must register their hives and adhere to health codes set by the city’s Department of Health. The D.O.H. can require beekeepers to correct deficiencies, such as registering an unregistered hive, or fixing nuisance conditions.
If this is happening at your building two years in a row, the rooftop hive is probably not being managed well. There are ways to prevent swarming, but the beekeeper has to be proactive. Try to make contact with your neighbor so they know the bees are causing a problem and that the hive must be properly managed.
If that doesn’t work, the D.O.H. fields complaints regarding problematic bees and hives. Its health code states that hives must be located “so that the movement of the bees does not become an animal nuisance,” and that beekeepers must have the ability to “control bee swarms and to remediate nuisance conditions.”
Encourage your other affected neighbors to submit their own complaints. The city does not remove any hives, even unregistered ones, instead requiring property owners to remove them. (Registered hives have ownership information on file with the city.)
If all else fails, your building can file a private nuisance lawsuit against the beekeeper in State Supreme Court. The lawsuit should demand that the beekeeper legalize the hives and comply with city code, and cease operations until that happens, said Adam Leitman Bailey, a real estate lawyer in Manhattan.
For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here.
The post City Beekeepers: The Dos and Don’ts of Maintaining an Urban Hive appeared first on New York Times.
