3/31/10

The Buzz About Big City Beekeepers

from takepart.com

It’s a resplendent Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles, that rare smog-free day. You decide to charbroil some burgers for lunch. You creek open the lid of your backyard grill and…bzzZZZzzzz! A bee-hive! In ten seconds flat, you’ve hightailed it back into the house, slammed the door, and Googled "exterminator."

Best to kill those sons-a-beeswax before they swarm, right? Wrong!

Slow your roll. Have a heart. And call Kirk Anderson at the Bee Rescue Hotline.

For a fee, Anderson, 61, a sort of bee Svengali in the City of Angels, will not only remove your unwanted bees, he’ll find them an adopted home through Backward Beekeepers, the organization of small-scale organic urban beekeepers that rely on sustainable, natural practices to keep their bees thriving.

“I’ve had people call me who’ve got bees in their dryer ducts,” said Anderson of the hotline, which receives up to 10 calls a day. “I’ve taken bees out of five-gallon paint cans, suitcases, chests of drawers, car glove boxes.”

At a recent Backward Beekeeper monthly meeting, Anderson held court like the Queen Bee—that is, if she sported Catfish Hunter’s mustache and wielded Yogi Berra’s wit.

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