4. The Javits Center Makes its Own Honey
It’s not something you can buy yet, but Jacob’s Honey is the honey made from the hundreds of thousands of bees on the Javits Center green roof. There are a total of eight beehives on the roof, with three established last year and two added this year because the bees are flourishing. Three of the hives split, with the new colonies created by the bees themselves.
The Javits Center harvested 250 ounces of honey in the fall of 2017, which was not enough to distribute it widely, but this fall they expect to double or triple that amount. One way to get your hands on a jar of Jacob’s Honey, which has a tag line of “Taste the Buzz” is to come on one of our free tours (next one is on September 30th).
There is one synthetic hive, where the bees don’t have to make the combs. This enables the staff to break the comb and let the honey pour out, and then the comb can be reset so the bees don’t have to work as hard to produce the fifty pounds of honey needed to survive the winter. The staff leaves them the fifty pounds and feed the bees with sugar water.
Bees can travel up to five miles so you might find these same bees over on the High Line and even in New Jersey. “It’s really important that our bees are cross-pollinating all over the city,” says Rick, “making [the plants] nice and healthy.”