The buzz around Teaneck
Senter relocates bees
TEANECK - Wearing a beekeeper's protective suit and hat and armed with a vacuum, Daniel Senter spent a recent afternoon siphoning honey bees out of the siding of a Teaneck home. The bees were taken to one of Senter's hives, which he keeps in three places - Eldred, N.Y., Woodridge N.Y. and in his Teaneck backyard. Senter, a rabbinic administrator at KOF-K, a kosher supervision company, began beekeeping about five years ago, after seeing a friend's hive in upstate New York. After carefully removing the siding of the house, Senter finds a bee hive. He did some research and learned about colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon in which bees abruptly disappear from a hive. The dramatic rise in colony collapse disorder in recent years has corresponded with a decline of honey bee populations in North America, and has been attributed to a variety of factors, including the use of pesticides and habitat loss. "I learned that bees were dying at an alarming rate, and thought to myself, I'm going to get involved," Senter said. The following spring he bought a "nucleus hive," which already had frames and developing bees in it, from a local New Jersey beekeeper. Since then he has established three apiaries, home to more than one million bees, and has participated in many bee rescues, traveling across the tri-state area to remove beehives from homes and businesses. Senter also founded a bee rescue website, njbees.com, and began selling honey from his hives at the Teaneck Farmers' Market this year. Because Teaneck's seasons are always slightly ahead of upstate New York, Senter said his small township hive is helpful in helping him predict what's coming. Many factors affect nectar flow and a hive's productivity, including weather and how much wildflower pollen is available to the bees. One thing Senter could not predict was a bear wiping out his Woodridge, N.Y. apiary this past spring. An electric fence had been erected to keep bears away from the hive, but had shorted out when the grass grew too long. During the winter, Senter had put the frames in his greenhouse to keep them warm. In the spring, with temperatures outside reaching 70 degrees, the honey fumes wafting from the door of the greenhouse proved an irresistible lure for a local bear. "I was pretty much sending out smoke signals to the bear," said Senter, shaking his head. When he returned to the greenhouse, he found it in shambles, and ran towards the apiary. "It was complete devastation. Four very strong, productive hives were literally wiped out." Senter said he is still finding frames of honeycomb scattered throughout the surrounding woods. The bees he rescued last month from the house in Teaneck were taken to the Woodridge apiary, and will help replace the bees lost in the bear attack. After removing some of the home's siding, Senter uncovered the hive and began vacuuming out the more than 20,000 bees on the machine's lowest setting. He then cut out the combs, dripping with honey, and secured them with rubber bands into wooden frames. "This will be their new home. Now they can continue their work they were doing in the hive," he explained. Senter receives calls from people from across the area asking for his help in removing unwanted bees. The rescues have taken him to some interesting places, including a McDonalds in the Bronx, after panicked workers called him saying a large hive on the roof was scaring away customers. "It's sort of like putting a puzzle together, and it's fun figuring out how I'm going to get them out of there. You never know what to expect." Senter said of the rescues. "It's the opportunity to save bees that are in danger that I really enjoy." In one Teaneck home he was called to, Senter was forced to do an internal rescue due to the brick exterior. He and a friend worked to remove the hive as the bees buzzed around the living room. It was only after he began beekeeping that Senter discovered he was allergic to the stings of honey bees. His reaction is not anaphylactic, but he experiences severe swelling at the site of the sting -- on one occasion his hand swelled to nearly twice its normal size. "I've been stung by wasps and hornets and never had a reaction -- it's honey bees specifically that I have the allergy to. There's definitely irony in that." - See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/the-buzz-around-teaneck-senter-relocates-bees-1.688112#sthash.KtcY22oH.dpuf
A Honey of a Hobby Barbara Bensoussan | Monday, September 10, 2012
If anybody deserves the title jack of all trades, it’s Rabbi Daniel Senter, rabbinic Administrator of Kof-K Kosher Supervision. In addition to the titles rabbi, mohel, and shochet, he hands out a card that includes the following: carded ASA umpire and baseball coach, EMT and CPR instructor, classic auto collector, master beer brewer, fishing guide, story teller, magician, balloonist, clock maker, swim instructor, and outdoorsman.
“I was always fascinated by how things work,” he says from behind his desk at the teal-colored offices of the Kof-K inTeaneck,New Jersey. Picking up a stapler, he says, “If I see a stapler, I want to understand how it works, why it’s designed this way, what materials were used to construct it. It serves me well in kashrus; if I go to a cheese factory, I want to know how the cheese-making equipment works, what it’s made of, does it use electricity or steam, and so on.”
The time he went to see a magician, he decided he had to learn how to do magic tricks; when he acquired a car he needed to understand what made it go. He even makes his own beer every Purim, which he’s dubbed “Shushan Habeerah.” But in case all the above qualifications aren’t enough rolled into a single person, most recently Rabbi Senter has added yet another feather to his cap: beekeeper and “rescuer.”
We usually imagine that it’s people who need rescuing from swarms of bees, not vice versa. But honey bees sometimes choose sheltered areas like the eaves of homes to build hives, and if the owners prefer not to share their space with bees, someone needs to carefully take them out (since so many bee colonies have been mysteriously failing, federal law prohibits the extermination of honey bees). Bees may also need a helping hand when they leave a hive in a swarm to seek a new hive, especially if they choose to settle in such inconvenient locales as the front doors of posh residences and restaurants, as was the case in June 2010 when a swarm occupied the front entrance of Cipriani on Wall Street, causing many passersby to fly away in panic.
Rabbi Senter’s apiarian hobby inadvertently “came to bee” through his qualifications as a shochet. “I had a friend who used to have a farm,” he recounts. “They’re an Orthodox family that used to keep chickens on the farm, and they asked me to shecht some for them. I came and did the job, and as we were salting the meat, I noticed some boxes with fencing around them. When I asked him what they were, he replied, ‘Those are my bees!’ and proceeded to show me the hives from the outside. It was late summer, and there was a lot of activity going on.”
“I was always fascinated by how things work,” he says from behind his desk at the teal-colored offices of the Kof-K inTeaneck,New Jersey. Picking up a stapler, he says, “If I see a stapler, I want to understand how it works, why it’s designed this way, what materials were used to construct it. It serves me well in kashrus; if I go to a cheese factory, I want to know how the cheese-making equipment works, what it’s made of, does it use electricity or steam, and so on.”
The time he went to see a magician, he decided he had to learn how to do magic tricks; when he acquired a car he needed to understand what made it go. He even makes his own beer every Purim, which he’s dubbed “Shushan Habeerah.” But in case all the above qualifications aren’t enough rolled into a single person, most recently Rabbi Senter has added yet another feather to his cap: beekeeper and “rescuer.”
We usually imagine that it’s people who need rescuing from swarms of bees, not vice versa. But honey bees sometimes choose sheltered areas like the eaves of homes to build hives, and if the owners prefer not to share their space with bees, someone needs to carefully take them out (since so many bee colonies have been mysteriously failing, federal law prohibits the extermination of honey bees). Bees may also need a helping hand when they leave a hive in a swarm to seek a new hive, especially if they choose to settle in such inconvenient locales as the front doors of posh residences and restaurants, as was the case in June 2010 when a swarm occupied the front entrance of Cipriani on Wall Street, causing many passersby to fly away in panic.
Rabbi Senter’s apiarian hobby inadvertently “came to bee” through his qualifications as a shochet. “I had a friend who used to have a farm,” he recounts. “They’re an Orthodox family that used to keep chickens on the farm, and they asked me to shecht some for them. I came and did the job, and as we were salting the meat, I noticed some boxes with fencing around them. When I asked him what they were, he replied, ‘Those are my bees!’ and proceeded to show me the hives from the outside. It was late summer, and there was a lot of activity going on.”