While I keep my bees outside the city, I do live in Manhattan. Contrary to popular belief, Manhattan is not an island of glass and aluminum towers only - it’s actually an incredibly green borough of New York. Aside from the huge Central Park (and few other smaller ones sprinkled throughout the island), there are trees lining almost every avenue and side street and tons of flower boxes, both on sidewalks, windows and rooftops. Granted, you’ll have a hard time finding a tree in Times Square or 42 Street, but just a few blocks away every street is planted with trees. And the bike lane program started under the previous mayor has planted thousands of trees literally right on every corner of the major avenues. The cherry trees along 1 and 2 Avenues have developed very nicely and are starting to provide major shade and beginnings of canopies especially now that we are done with that 2nd Avenue subway construction. And many blocks have adopted their avenue corner and planted nice flowers around each tree providing an incredible variety as no two look the same.

I recently had an argument with someone who challenged me on this very topic and used the green cities of Europe as an example. While it’s true that many European capitals have many beautiful parks, very few allow trees to grow on side streets - there’s no room for the trees! European capitals have centuries of organic growth and utilized every square inch to build up and there isn’t much space left over for flora. In Manhattan, on the other hand, it’s almost a race between its citizens to call 311 (NYC’s equivalent of 911 emergency but for reporting city issues: potholes, broken lights, damaged trees, noise complaints, etc.) and report when a tree dies and needs a replacement. I have to say that in 20 years living there, I rarely waited more than 3 months for the city crews to show up, measure the old space and cut out more room in the sidewalk and plant a variety of new trees. We get pears, cherries, locust, ginkgo, oak, maple, platan and a few evergreens whose name escapes me. The cutting of a bigger tree hole is really a game changer, since the city has decided a few years back that the old hole standard (I think it was 3’x3’) was simply inadequate to support a mature tree. Now the standard tree hole in any new sidewalk is 6’x3’.

So, yeah, we’ve got plenty of things for bees to forage, though I’ll leave it to James to update the list on how much honey his city hives produce.

Przemek

> On Apr 13, 2020, at 8:43 PM, Aylett Apiaries <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Randy, sugarcane is more of a South Florida thing in the US. I doubt it is
> cultivated as far north as Manhattan. But to the point, there are nectar
> sources in most downtown environments. We just do not see or pay attention
> to them.
> 
>> 
>> 
> 
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