Birdhouse-style “bee hotels” are coming to seven New York City public plazas to help at-risk native pollinators thrive — but one expert says they’re not going to fly in the concrete jungle.
The city’s buzzworthy project provides nutrition and nesting in the form of wooden boxes on poles and bee-friendly vegetation, Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said Thursday.
“Our open streets and public plazas have always buzzed with activity, but this year they’re going to be the bee’s knees,” Rodriguez said in a press release.
“Bees are essential for the health of our planet, and this initiative will create habitats for at-risk native bee populations and help facilitate important scientific research.”
The bee-boosting spaces aim to protect tickle bees, a small species of ground-dwelling insects “that very rarely sting people,” Rodriguez added at a press conference.
The plazas will include underground “bunkers” surrounded by plants and nutrient-rich soil into which female bees can build their nests and lay their eggs.
But bee expert Anthony “Tony Bees” Planakis, the NYPD’s former unofficial bee expert, warned that luring the insects to such dense urban environments could “hurt them more than help.”
“My biggest thing is sustainability — bees in the city aren’t sustainable. There’s not enough space for them to forage,” said Planakis, who now works as a private hive removal consultant. “Concrete does not secrete pollen.”
“These bees are stingless, they can’t defend themselves against yellow jackets or hornets,” he said. “Why you gonna mess with nature? Just leave them alone.”
He said bee hotels in Staten Island and “the suburbs” could be successful — but not in space-crunched boroughs such as Manhattan and the Bronx.
The bee-friendly stations will be installed at Cooper Square Plaza in Manhattan, 34th Avenue in Queens and Water Street Plaza in Staten Island.
They’ll also go in at Quisqueya Plaza in the Bronx and Gates Avenue in Brooklyn. They were already tested at Parkside Plaza in Brooklyn and Fordham Plaza in the Bronx.
Up to 60% of the state’s native pollinators were found to be at risk due to declining populations, a 2022 report by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation found.
For the project, the Department of Transportation partnered with the Horticultural Society of New York, known as The Hort, and Rutgers University.
“The Hort and the Department of Transportation are transitioning many of the plantings in public plazas and Open Streets to perennials plants, including a host of native plants and pollinator plants,” said Jeremy Jungels, senior director of horticulture at The Horticultural Society of New York.