MIDTOWN, Manhattan (WABC) — When most people picture a beekeeper, they might imagine someone working in a quiet field or orchard. For Andrew Cote, the job can instead mean heading to a rooftop high above Midtown Manhattan.
Cote maintains 42 urban hives across all five boroughs, including hives on rooftops and skyscrapers throughout New York City.
“I’ve got beehives on top of big name hotels, churches, synagogues. I had them on top of a search engine. I’m not allowed to say it rhymes with oogle,” Cote said.
One of those locations is the InterContinental in Times Square, where about 120,000 bees live on the rooftop.
During a routine visit, Cote checks the condition of the hives and their honey production.
“This is a routine maintenance check make sure they’re healthy and the queen is laying her 2,000 eggs per day, make sure there’s no diseases, make sure there’s some honey production, just make sure all things are in order,” Cote said.
On an average day, Cote said his work can stretch through all available daylight.
Beekeeping is a family tradition for Cote, a fifth-generation beekeeper whose family’s involvement with bees dates to the 1800s.
“I don’t know how they got into it, but I know that they needed their bees to pollinate the cherry trees,” Cote said of his ancestors. “They had cherries, they had a cow, and they had bees. So it’s a little land of milk and honey with some cherry on top.”
Cote started working with bees around age 10 as a way to spend more time with his father.
“I got my hands sticky starting around 10 years old, because I wanted to spend more time with my father,” he said. “I wasn’t really that interested in bees.”
That eventually changed. In 2005, Cote launched Andrew’s Honey with his father and brother.
His hives now span the city.
“I have bees in all five boroughs,” Cote said.
The honey is collected from frames in smaller boxes on the hives known as honey mediums.
“So that’s where we draw the honey from,” Cote said. “We take those frames and we centrifuge them and the honey drips out, and then, voila. We’ve we’ve got honey.”
Cote said a hive produces an average of 60 pounds of excess, harvestable honey. The two hives housing about 120,000 bees at the InterContinental would therefore produce about 120 pounds, he said.
His favorite comes from a particular corner of the city.
“But, I’m a big fan of the honey from Rockaway Beach,” Cote said. “There’s something that’s growing out there in Jamaica Bay unspoiled. I don’t know exactly what it is, but there’s something a little bit extra special to me.”
Beyond tending the hives, Cote operates Andrew’s Honey through a truck that has become a fixture on the Upper West Side and a booth at the Union Square farmers market. He also recently opened his first brick-and-mortar store at 75th Street and Columbus Avenue.
Running a small business in New York City comes with challenges.
“It’s tough,” Cote said. “Everybody has the same complaint who has a small business. The rent is very high. Retail is not thriving.”
Still, he has a sense of humor about the difficulties.
“The rewards of beekeeping are stings and poverty, but I really like what I do, so that’s okay,” he said.
The family connection remains central to the business. Cote said his father, who is turning 84 this year, continues to work with him. His father was a firefighter for more than 30 years.
Now Cote is also introducing his son to beekeeping, although he doesn’t expect him to make it a career.
“I don’t think he’s going to come into this as a business,” Cote said. “I think that he’s going to learn the the hard work ethic of beekeeping and an appreciation for nature.”
For Cote, the work is about more than honey or business. It’s also a connection to his family and the natural world in the middle of New York City.
“I love that I get to work outside, that my office has these multi-billion dollar views that I feel a connectivity not only to my father and now to my son, but to our lineage,” Cote said. “I love working with the bees. I love their organized chaos. I just love to wonder at them. And and I’m always shocked at how calm and good I feel when I work with them.”
“It’s counterintuitive, but when I’m working with the bees, that organized chaos within the hive somehow makes sense, and I leave all of my worries outside,” he said.
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