Rooftop Bees Help Keep City Green
屋頂養蜂有益城市綠化
By Julie Satow

On the rooftops above the office canyons of Midtown Manhattan, there is a corporate life for bees where new colonies pollinate green roofs and produce honey for the lucky tenants working below.
在紐約曼哈坦中城的辦公大樓屋頂，蜜蜂已經開始過著群體生活。這些新蜂群為綠色屋頂的植物授粉，同時為在下面工作的幸運承租人生產蜂蜜。

Richard Kohlbrecher, who is allergic to bee venom, first saw hundreds of honeybees darting in and out of the sprawling sedum ground cover on the green roofs he was inspecting at One Bryant Park a year ago. He turned his initial alarm into a housing plan for the secret tenants.
一年前，對蜂毒過敏的柯爾布雷哲檢查「布萊恩公園一號」辦公大樓的綠色屋頂時，首次目睹數百隻蜜蜂在地面不規則蔓延的景天屬植物之間來回快速飛行。他先是大吃一驚，繼而開始為這些神秘的房客規畫一個家。

“I had never seen that before and it got me thinking: if there are that many bees in Midtown, maybe it makes sense to put up some hives,” said Mr. Kohlbrecher, vice president for operations for The Durst Organization, a major New York realty company that owns the 51-story tower.
德斯集團是紐約一家大型不動產公司，擁有這棟高51層的大樓，現任該公司營業副總裁的柯爾布雷哲說：「我此前從未見過這種景象。它使我想到：如果中城有這麼多蜜蜂，安置一些蜂巢可能有意義。」

And so, unbeknown to the office workers, above them on the seventh-floor rooftop there are now some 100,000 European honeybees, brought in with two main hives during the summer.
由於這種發想，在辦公室上班族不知情的情況下，七樓的屋頂現在已經有大約10萬隻歐洲蜜蜂進駐。它們今年夏天與兩座主蜂巢同時引進。

Perhaps it’s not surprising that Durst has become a proponent of beekeeping. The company has green roofs on eight of its commercial buildings.
德斯集團已經成為倡導養蜂的企業。這可能並不怎麼令人意外。該公司名下已有八棟商業辦公大樓擁有綠屋頂。

And beekeeping has a long tradition in New York, now including such lofty perches as the terraces of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the Whitney Museum of Art. In fact, beehives are becoming increasingly common across the city, said James Fischer of TheHoneybee Conservancy.org, an advocacy group.
在紐約，養蜂的傳統由來已久，現在已有包括華爾道夫飯店與惠特尼美術館等高級建築物的平台屋頂加入這個行列。蜜蜂保育組織的費瑟表示，事實上，在紐約全市，蜂巢已經越來越普遍。

That increase has accelerated in the last three years, since a ban on beekeeping instituted in 1999 was lifted. It is costly to plant a lot of sedum and can take several seasons before it fills out; bees are a way to hasten this process.
紐約市政府三年前取消1999年頒行的禁止養蜂規定之後，蜜蜂的數量加速增加。種植大量景天屬植物很花錢，而且必須經過數季才能長滿。蜜蜂可以使這個過程加快。

Beekeeping has been catching on atop urban buildings outside of New York as well. In London, the number of urban beehives has exploded in recent years, to the point there was concern that the city had an insufficient supply of bee-friendly plants to feed the growing populations.
在紐約以外的其他地區，在城市建築物的屋頂養蜂，也開始蔚為風潮。在倫敦，城市蜂巢的數量近年來大量增加，增幅大到讓部分人士擔心，倫敦可能沒有足量對蜜蜂友善的植物來餵養有增無減的蜂群。

“Putting honeybees in a location supercharges the normal pollination process,” said Chase Emmons of Brooklyn Grange, an organic rooftop farm in New York that provided the beehives to One Bryant Park and helps maintain them.
紐約布魯克林農場是一座有機屋頂農場，為「布萊恩公園一號」大廈提供蜂巢，同時協助保養，合夥人艾蒙斯說：「如果把蜜蜂放在特定地點，授粉過程會加速。」

The honeybees are a Russian variety, known for their hardiness and ability to survive cold winters. That could come in handy because bees have been plagued in recent years by colony collapse disorder, a mysterious malady that has wiped out as much as 50 percent of America’s commercial beehives in the last year alone.
這些蜜蜂屬俄羅斯種，具有粗勇且不畏嚴冬的特性。這些特性可能大有用處，因為近年來，蜜蜂相繼出現群體崩解現象。僅在過去一年，原因不明的疾病在美國就毀掉了多達半數的商用蜂群。

Beekeeping is a relatively cheap endeavor. It can cost just $125 to buy a package of bees, and there is no real maintenance involved.
養蜂是成本相對低廉的行業。一箱蜜蜂可能只要125美元，而且不需要什麼保養費用。

The Durst Organization plans to hand out the honey to its tenants as holiday gifts.
德斯集團打算把蜂蜜送給它的承租人，當作假期禮物。

While their pollination efforts can help maintain the health of green roofs, bees are not commonly used for this purpose, mostly because of the fear of stings. Yet honeybees are inherently docile creatures, and in fact, they die after stinging. “So for evolutionary reasons, for a hive to expend the energy to defend itself, there has to be a clear or present danger,” Mr. Emmons said.
蜜蜂授粉可協助維持綠色屋頂的健康，蜜蜂卻未普遍用於這種用途，主要是因為人們擔心被螫。然而蜜蜂先天就是溫順的動物。事實上，牠們螫人之後自己就會死亡。艾蒙斯說：「基於演化的理由，一群蜜蜂必定是在面臨明顯或即時的危險時，才會傾全力保衛自己。」

But, he noted, “you wouldn’t want the Time Warner guy coming up to the roof to install a cable and accidentally stumbling onto a hive, so it is important to know who will be accessing the area.”
不過他說：「你一定不希望時代華納公司的某一個傢伙前往屋頂架線時，無意間踩到蜂巢。因此，最重要的是，知道誰會接近蜂巢。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/07/realestate/commercial/worker-bees-on-a-rooftop-ignoring-bryant-parks-pleasures.html

2013-09-17聯合報/G9版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 陳世欽譯 原文參見紐時週報十一版右