Birdhouse-style “bee lodges” are coming to seven New York Metropolis public plazas to assist at-risk native pollinators thrive — however one skilled says they’re not going to fly within the concrete jungle.
Town’s buzzworthy venture supplies diet and nesting within the type of wood bins on poles and bee-friendly vegetation, Division of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez mentioned Thursday.
“Our open streets and public plazas have at all times buzzed with exercise, however this yr they’re going to be the bee’s knees,” Rodriguez mentioned in a press launch.
“Bees are important for the well being of our planet, and this initiative will create habitats for at-risk native bee populations and assist facilitate vital scientific analysis.”
The bee-boosting areas goal to guard tickle bees, a small species of ground-dwelling bugs “that very hardly ever sting folks,” Rodriguez added at a press convention.
The plazas will embody underground “bunkers” surrounded by crops and nutrient-rich soil into which feminine bees can construct their nests and lay their eggs.
However bee skilled Anthony “Tony Bees” Planakis, the NYPD’s former unofficial bee skilled, warned that luring the bugs to such dense city environments might “damage them greater than assist.”
“My largest factor is sustainability — bees within the metropolis aren’t sustainable. There’s not sufficient house for them to forage,” mentioned Planakis, who now works as a non-public hive removing advisor. “Concrete doesn’t secrete pollen.”
“These bees are stingless, they will’t defend themselves in opposition to yellow jackets or hornets,” he mentioned. “Why you gonna mess with nature? Simply depart them alone.”
He mentioned bee lodges in Staten Island and “the suburbs” might be profitable — however not in space-crunched boroughs equivalent to Manhattan and the Bronx.
The bee-friendly stations will likely be put in at Cooper Sq. Plaza in Manhattan, thirty fourth Avenue in Queens and Water Road Plaza in Staten Island.
They’ll additionally go in at Quisqueya Plaza within the Bronx and Gates Avenue in Brooklyn. They had been already examined at Parkside Plaza in Brooklyn and Fordham Plaza within the Bronx.
As much as 60% of the state’s native pollinators had been discovered to be in danger as a consequence of declining populations, a 2022 report by the New York State Division of Environmental Conservation discovered.
For the venture, the Division of Transportation partnered with the Horticultural Society of New York, often called The Hort, and Rutgers College.
“The Hort and the Division of Transportation are transitioning lots of the plantings in public plazas and Open Streets to perennials crops, together with a number of native crops and pollinator crops,” mentioned Jeremy Jungels, senior director of horticulture at The Horticultural Society of New York.
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