Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Beelieve It Or Not, NYC Has Its Own Bee Rescue Team
By
Garth Johnston
Published May 28, 2011
Modified May 28, 2011
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
By
Garth Johnston
Published May 28, 2011
Modified May 28, 2011
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
With bee keeping now legal in the city, there are a lot more bees buzzing around town. And sometimes in the spring, those bees decide to pack up their queen and seek out new digs. It happens all the time. But thanks to many a human's irrational fear of the little buzzers (damn you My Girl!) people often freak out when a swarm flies by. But they don't need to! This is New York City—we've got a Bee Rescue Team, run by nycbeekeeping, to help find a home for displaced swarms.
In fact, yesterday around 2 p.m., the group saved a swarm in Park Slope that had settled at a Bee Pee gas station at the corner of Douglas and Fourth. Once alerted to the swarm “NYC Beekeeping’s Bee Rescue Team" was contacted and quickly went into action, collecting the bees into a box and delivering them to a new home in a community garden.
“Swarming is a normal and non-aggressive behavior that typically happens during a several week period in the spring when an older queen bee leaves the colony with a large group of worker bees to find a new home, allowing one of her daughter queens to remain in the original colony" explains NYC Beekeeping co-director Jim Fischer. "These flights are an awe-inspiring and natural means of reproduction of honey bee colonies.”
So don't freak out if you see a swarm around town in the coming weeks. Just contact your friendly neighborhood beekeepers and let them safely find the little plant pollinators a new home.
Tagged
bee rescue team
bee swarms
beekeeping
bees
brooklyn
nycbeekeeping
Garth Johnston
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Central Park birders, others remember 63-year-old woman killed in park
People who said they knew her described her as an artist and a familiar presence in the Ramble.
By
Charles Lane
Published Sep 28, 2026 at 7:04 p.m. ET
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on 34th Street in Midtown, NYPD says
It's the latest in a string of hit-and-run deaths in the city in recent months.
By
Liam Quigley
News
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on 34th Street in Midtown, NYPD says
It's the latest in a string of hit-and-run deaths in the city in recent months.
By
Liam Quigley
New ingredient mandated for Latin American kitchen, restaurant plates in NJ
By
Arya Sundaram
A Brooklyn jail cell filled with smoke. The emergency button failed, a lawyer said.
By
Samantha Max
Crews launch tunnel machines to dig first new Hudson River rail tunnels since 1910
By
Michael Sol Warren
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .