‘The Beekeeper’ reveals competitive world of NYC Beekeeping
Brooklyn Filmmaker’s Documentary to Screen in Lower Manhattan
Honey bees have always been a part of New York City life, with beehives dotting the roofs of hospitals, orphanages and tenements. But as the city became more cosmopolitan, beekeeping gradually fell out of fashion, and it was banned outright in 1999. But the harrowing reports of colony collapse disorder in 2007 created an international focus on honey bees. Concerned citizens all over the world rushed to aid the ailing bee, and New Yorkers fought to have the ban lifted in 2010.
“The Beekeeper,” a new documentary directed by Park Slope resident Susan Sfarra of Brooklyn-based Two Ladies in Black Productions, LLC, follows a beekeeping season in New York City shortly after the ban was overturned. The film takes place on rooftops and in bee yards across the boroughs to follow one season of honey production by Gotham’s hardest-working insects. From the roof of the Waldorf Astoria to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, swarms are caught, beekeepers are stung, honey is harvested and the season draws to a close with a dramatic NYPD raid on dozens of beehives in a Queens backyard that reveals the sticky nature of New York’s urban beekeeping scene.
The film, which is available on iTunes, will screen at Anthology Film Archives on Wednesday, Aug. 20 at 9:15 p.m. as part of the New Filmmakers Summer Series.