Drink too much red wine and it could turn your teeth red and make you buzzed. There’s some similarities with buzzers in Brooklyn -- it's impossible for bees in Red Hook to fib about where they’ve been, as cherry red bees, with bright red honey and red hives, are spotted.
A New York City beekeeper was baffled by bees that began buzzing around the neighborhood, red-faced but not angry. Beekeeper Cerise noticed the Brooklyn-based bees who started showing up in the season’s hottest new color: red.
Entrepreneurs, pay close attention: those unusual red, Brooklyn bees are producing very unusual red honey along with some never-before-seen red beehives. Yes, the little buzzers are actually as red as it gets -- in fact, says beekeeper Cerise, these bees are as red as cough syrup. Taste of the honey may be a different story in terms of potential sales: the bright red honey, which began appearing early summer, is described as having a “metallic” and “overly sweet” taste, not exactly the description that connoisseurs’ dreams are made of.
But if the description of taste sounds familiar, it should – few things with a natural shape have such an unusually unnatural flavor.
The buzz about town, first begun by a fellow beekeeper raising bees on Governor’s Island across the water, is that the miniature ‘New Yorkers’ have been imbibing a bit: it seems there’s available runoff at Dell's Maraschino Cherries Company -- a specialty cherry spot located in the aptly-named “Red Hook” section of Brooklyn, New York.
Bee testing has confirmed: the little Brooklyn buzzers are riddled with Red Dye No. 40 – coincidentally, or not coincidental at all -- the exact same food coloring dye used in producing maraschino cherry juice.
A proclaimed “bee expert” makes claims to the media that the buzzing bees had been creating a “big nuisance” at the maraschino cherry factory in the Red Hook district – oddly, it seems no one has considered institution of the same methods that keep humans in, or out, of unwanted territories: the simple fence.
Bees can be beautiful – apparently the newly-shaded red bees considered “stunners” by those lucky enough to catch a glimpse. A local New York beekeeper claims a cherry-infused radiance exhibited by the new twist on nature: "When the sun is a bit down, they [the cherry-drinking bees] glow red in the evenings... They [the red bees] were slightly fluorescent. And it was beautiful."
Now if those bees start turning up in hues of a golden, rich brown, we'll know where else they've been in Red Hook.