The Interconnectional Barclay Hotel is a very photogenic site, as the Chrysler Building looms nearby (see attached).

From the early 2000s until 2013, we kept a half dozen hives on their roof, around the corner from the raised-bed gardens where they grew kitchen greens.  It was a great training apiary for small groups, conveniently located in midtown Manhattan.
But the honey from those hives was repulsive.  Large air vents from Grand Central Terminal's many northbound tracks give it and its neighbor, the Waldorf-Astoria, a distinct powerful odor of overheated brake shoes at rush hour, and this gets into the honey.
The hotel bar was able to use the honey in various mixed drinks, but the honey tasted alone was almost as unpalatable as the honey from the Bronx Zoo, where the bees apparently had a fondness for "water" that was 20% Giraffe urine (or worse).

Our group was non-profit, so classes and workshops were all absolutely free.  In 2013 the hotel closed for renovations. IHG Hotels sold a majority stake in the Barclay to the Qatari chain "Constellation Hotels".  After the "save the bees" fad wore off, I stopped teaching the classes I taught at the Central Park Arsenal and our little beekeeping organization turned into a private social club. Several wannabe profiters distinctly lacking math skills have been attempting to eke a living from "training" and selling packages to a much smaller number of gullible wannabee beekeepers unaware of the free classes of the Long Island Beekeepers Club, and via pathetically standing on street corners in all weather at "farmers markets" hawking jars of honey of dubious origin to passing tourists like a carnival sideshow pictchman.  If this is anyone's idea of "success", then there but for the grace of God goes us.

The punchline is that tourists buying honey likely won't even get it home. Anyone who has flown commercial to a beekeeper meeting with jars of honey for a honey swap or show knows what a battle it is to get a simple jar of honey past the TSA...

"You can't take that on board an aircraft!"

Why not?

"It’s a liquid!"

"No, it’s not a liquid - it's a GEL! Its honey!"

"Wait here... I've got to go check with the supervisor"

All that said, there is a legit beekeeper who has opened a honey store in Astoria Queens at the corner of 23rd Ave and 35th St as he has quietly built a good following and really does produce the honey he sells.  Photo attached, as his paint job is cute.  



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