"Airport Beekeepers Get a Second Chance"

"Every 10 days, Thad Smith enters a piece of land that is otherwise forbidden to most people: The empty acreage around Chicago’s O’Hare airport. It’s there that Smith and his crew from the Westside Bee Boyz tend to 75 beehives. Last year, he and his fellow beekeepers harvested 1,600 pounds of honey in the otherwise unoccupied land beneath O’Hare’s airspace.

An international trend that began in Germany has spread to the U.S. as airports have begun to open their vacant land to bees and beekeepers. Airport apiaries in Quebec, Copenhagen, and Seattle have appeared in The New York Times and on Science Friday. But some of these collaborations are producing more than honey. They’re also creating jobs, helping to restore habitat, and giving some beekeepers a second chance.

By design, airports require long tracts of land for takeoff and landing strips and act as a buffer between the planes and the surrounding community. As a safety measure this excess land cannot be developed for human use. But for bees, it’s prime real estate."

Chris Hardman reports for Civil Eats May 27, 2015.