By: Don Driggers
The East Hampton Airport (HTO) is the new home of some 200,000 endangered honeybees, living in six thriving hives on the property.
“We’re always hit with so much negativity about the airport, with complaints about noise or a negative carbon footprint, so adding bees was a way to give back and help the honeybees,” Bernadette Ruggiero, co-manager of Sound Aircraft Services which operates HTO told the New York Post.
Chris Kelly of Promise Land Apiaries set up the hives at the far end of a runway, in a wooded area flush with trees, wildflowers and blueberry bushes about 3/4 of a mile from the terminal, NY Post reported.
“Six hundred acres is a lot of open land for the bees to forage in, and my expectation of success has been confirmed by both the volume of honey collected and the growth of the hives,” said Kelly.
NY Post reported: Kelly first installed five hives with approximately 10,000 bees each, but they have prospered so much the number has become more like 30,000 per hive. One hive grew so quickly that a second queen left to establish a new home on a nearby tree branch, which Kelly transferred into a sixth hive.
Bees greatly contribute not only to the pollination of wildflowers, but also to the pollination of agricultural crops. It is estimated that bees and other pollinators pollinate almost 90% of flowering plants and “70% of the 124 world’s main crops.” Without bees, these numbers would begin to rapidly decline.
Bumble bees, because of their large size and ease of observation, are perhaps the best-known bees in terms of conservation status. A number of eastern bumble bee species are known to have experienced significant declines over the past 30 years. Bombus terricola, B. bohemicus, B. insularis, B. pensylvanicus, and B. terricola are all in decline over part or all of their ranges. Bombus affinis, a common eastern bumble bee prior to 1996, is now extremely rare and may be close to extinction. The cause of these declines are not clear but may include loss of natural habitat, exposure to pesticides, and the arrival of nonnative pathogens, according to research from Cornell University
East Hampton Airport has been under fire for years from the community. The airport is mainly used for private price and locals have complained over the noise and pollution caused by summer traffic from private jets and helicopters, used by the likes of Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Bill and Hillary Clinton.
