NEW YORK—An estimated 3 million bees and 45 hives were removed from a home in Queens by the NYPD and the New York Beekeeping Association Wednesday night.
“I’ve never seen anything as reckless as this is New York City,” said Andrew Coté, founder of the New York City Beekeepers Association. “Hives three feet from the egress of neighborhood buildings, on the ground, in shambles, diseased [bees], completely stripped of all of their honey, not just their excess honey, [and] unregistered.
“I hardly have the stomach for it,” Coté said.
The owner of the hives and the property is a native Chinese who speaks no English, but was once a beekeeper in China, according to a member of the beekeepers association.
An Epoch Times reporter, who speaks Chinese, was on the scene Wednesday night while the hives were being removed, but could not locate the owner.
Coté said the owner had invited the NYPD and the beekeeping association to the house to remove the hives. They sealed the hives, put them on trucks, and took them away.
Coté had advice for would-be beekeepers: “[Don’t] be so foolish as to put 45 hives in a 20-by-20-foot space in a densely populated urban area.”
Beekeepers must register their hives with the Department of Health or face fines of $2,000 per hive, and other punishment.
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