“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” says Whitney Fuller, who decided to adopt pets with her ex-boyfriend — about 10,000 of them.
Fuller, fresh from writing a story about organic honey for O, The Oprah Magazine, decided to enroll in the New York City Beekeepers Association’s four-week beekeeping course to learn how to build a beehive, where to put it and how to avoid disease within the colony. Then she and her boyfriend purchased a $500 hive of Italian honeybees, or Apis mellifera, the nonaggressive honeybee, and the best for beginners. It was illegal to keep them in New York City at the time, but “it seemed like a fun thing to do,” says Fuller, “to be a part of this cool, illegal subculture.”
And then she and her boyfriend broke up — and the bees multiplied.
“I got custody of the bees,” Fuller laughs.
Unfortunately, the hive was on her boyfriend’s roof in Greenpoint, and Fuller lives in the West Village. “Think about having to move a hive of 50,000 bees,” she groans. “It’s a logistical nightmare.”
But Fuller refused to abandon the hive. In March, she enlisted a friend to help her move it. “It probably weighed 100 pounds, and there was no elevator, so we had to take it down two steep flights, one step at a time,” she explains.
They then drove the hive across the Williamsburg Bridge and straight to the Ace Hotel, where Fuller, 28, now works as the sales manager. Luckily, beekeeping had just been legalized, and Fuller had a proposition for the hip hotel.
“I talked to April [Bloomfield, chef of the hotel’s restaurant, The Breslin] and asked her what she thought about honey,” Fuller explains. “She said, ‘That is one food I hate.’” But when Fuller asked if she could keep her hive on the roof, Bloomfield agreed because “she wanted to make the rooftop green.”
Fuller had ideas too, namely to give away the bees’ honey (one hive can produce as much as 120 pounds per year) to frequent and VIP hotel guests. “The Ace is all about giving guests a sense of New York. What better amenity than honey that’s made from the rooftop’s garden?” says Fuller, who pulls her beekeeper’s suit on over her work clothes and tends to her bees once a week. “I’m the only other person besides the engineering department with a key to the roof,” she laughs.
She lights a smoker (fueled by chemical-free burlap bags from the hotel’s Stumptown coffee), which calms the bees as she opens the hive. Then, she checks on the queen (who she named “Queen of the Ace” and marked with a blue dot for visibility), looks for fresh eggs and honey, and leaves the bees with sugar water.
“It’s like gardening in a way,” says Fuller, who admits it can sometimes be a painful task. “Lately, I get stung every time I check on the hive.”
But to her, it’s worth it. “They’re fuzzy little creatures, and they’re kind of cute,” she laughs. “I feel like a proud mother, telling them, ‘Good job!’ I have a very emotional connection with them.”
With her new queen (her original, “Vitamin B,” disappeared during the move, causing chaos in the hive), she’s already produced around 20 pounds of honey, and is hopeful the Ace will be swimming in the sticky stuff within the year. While there aren’t plans to feature honey-inspired menu items at The Breslin anytime soon, Fuller is happy to share the bounty.
“If anyone wants to use it, they can,” says. “But I want to take some, too — they’re still my bees!”
pets@nypost.com