During a sweltering New York City summer, the bees turned red. Little by little, each member of the hive glowed a suspicious crimson, which quickly turned the honey into an unrecognizable bloody syrup. Frankly, it freaked people out. They needed to know the potential environmental ramifications.
So insect experts in Brooklyn set out to find answers. It took beekeepers, small business owners, and the police several years to get to the bottom of why the honey turned red — and all involved were completely blown away by the source of this strange transformation.
A strange miracle of nature cropped up around Brooklyn in the summer of 2010, where beekeepers noticed a reddish hue to the bellies of their bees. Soon enough, their honey yield was just as rosy.
The New York Times / Ozier Muhammad
They worried about what the red color meant for the bees’ survival. Were they suffering the effects of pesticides? Or perhaps this was a climate-induced issue given that New York City was in the midst of its hottest summer on record.
Grist / Gita Nanda
Granted, bee populations globally took a hit from Colony Collapse Disorder, which still has no definable cause. While the beekeepers knew the potential hazards of raising colonies, nobody had ever heard of spontaneously red honey, though the industry was totally new to the city.
Ecology Matters / Wikimedia / Skinkie
Beekeeping in New York City was banned under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, though there were still several rogue operations carefully disguised on rooftops. In March of 2010, the ban was lifted, quadrupling the number of hives by summertime.
Heritage Radio Network / Brooklyn Grange
So, full-time educator and part-time beekeeper Tim O’Neal suggested the red substance could be ethylene glycol, a toxic chemical famous for its sweetness. He reasoned the bees were drawn to the liquid from MTA bus service depots.
Vehicle Scene
Cerise Mayo, a beekeeper on Governor’s Island, also had bees producing red honey, which meant whatever was causing this anomaly somehow reached across the 600 yards of water separating them from the Red Hook cases.
The New York Times / Ozier Muhammad
To determine if the honey was actually poisoned with ethylene glycol or any other contaminant the keepers hadn’t considered, Tim O’Neal sent samples of his honeycomb off for lab testing at the New York State apiculturist in Albany.
When the test came back, the results showed the culprit: F.D.& C. Red No. 40. The bees were ingesting a food-safe dye somewhere around Red Hook, Brooklyn, and pretty soon, the keepers had a hunch about the source of the color.
Flickr / Mapbox
Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Co, founded in 1948, was a three-generation run family business, and an institution for the neighborhood of Red Hook. It just so happened that a key ingredient in their fruit confections was F.D.& C. Red No. 40.
CBS News
Murmurs of the Cherry Factory’s involvement turned to hard fact when the New York Times ran the front page headline, “In Mystery (and Culture Clash), Some Brooklyn Bees Turn Red.” Still, some questioned whether it was all joke.
Governor Island beekeeper Cerise Mayo was quoted in the Times article, which some people took as an attempt at humor. They thought her name was fake because “cerise” is the French word for cherry.
Departures / Philip Winn
Most people took the initial article as a story about gentrification. One one side there was Arthur Mondella, the owner-operator of Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Co, and on the other were the modern beekeeping gentrifiers pointing the finger.
NY Post / Buck Ennis / Crain’s New York Business
There was pointedly no comment from Arthur Mondella in the story, and he wasn’t answering calls. He was, however, trying to remedy the problem quietly on his own. Arthur spoke to Andrew Coté from the New York City Beekeepers Association and arranged a meeting.
As to avoid lurking reporters, Arthur met Andrew Coté, at the factory one morning at 5 AM. Arthur was ready and willing to learn “how to put some screens up, make the lids of his bins tighter, control the spills,” as Coté remembered.
The New York Times / Brooklyn District Attorney
When they parted ways, Arthur Mondella paid Andrew Coté for his services — no cherry puddles were going to leak out of the factory anymore. All was well. In fact, the beekeepers were thankful Arthur called one their own rather than an exterminator. This, however, was not the end of the mystery.
Fruit Net / Google Street View
One group spotted the article in the paper and wasn’t as willing to let bygones be bygones: the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. There was a reason Arthur Mondella was so willing to sweep his cherry puddles under the rug.
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Facebook / Dominique Mondella Bidetti
It was a long held NYPD suspicion that Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Co was covering up a criminal operation. On more than one occasion the lingering odor of marijuana was reported beneath the sickly sweet cherry smell.
Irish Mirror
Postal workers called it in, neighbors noticed, but even a drug-sniffing dog wasn’t able to pinpoint a marijuana scent. Lack of evidence made the DA’s office move the cherry factory to the backburner, until 2013 when Kenneth Thompson was elected.
DNA Info
Under Kenneth Thompson, the DA’s office cracked down on environmental infractions, which brought the maraschino honeybee caper back to the surface. On February 24, 2015, the Department of Environmental Protection, the NYPD, and the Brooklyn DA’s went to Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Co, search warrant in hand.
NY Post / William Miller
From Arthur Mondella’s perspective, this was an ambush. According to the warrant, they were searching for evidence of the illegal dumping of wastewater, which limited the scope of where they could look. That didn’t keep them from a major discovery.
NY Post / William Miller
During the search, they discovered what appeared to be a false wall in Arthur’s office. Things were looking grim. The authorities requested a second search warrant to gain access to the hidden area, and Arthur took a moment to relax in the bathroom.
Daily Mail / Collier County Sheriff’s Office
After a few minutes, Arthur didn’t return. Police officers hammered on the locked door, telling Arthur to open, but he wouldn’t budge. Instead, he requested his sister Joanne come to the door, where he called to her, “Take care of my kids.”
NY Daily News / Joe Marino
Moments later, the sound of a gunshot echoed through the factory. Arthur Mondella took his own life with a .357 Magnum pistol he had concealed in an ankle holster. He must’ve seen no way to reckon with the consequences of what the police were about to uncover.
NY Daily News / Joe Marino
Shifting aside the false wall, police saw a ladder that led them to a sprawling 2,500-square foot basement turned into a substantial growing operation. In total, one hundred plants were recovered, thriving under the L.E.D. grow lights.
Gowanus Lounge
Each discovery added to the overtly cinematic narrative: $130,000 in cash, a secret garage full of luxury cars that included a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley, plus many books about plant husbandry and another entitled “The World Encyclopedia of Organized Crime.”
NY Daily News / Michael Graae
In spite of the weird Breaking Bad style tragedy that unfolded at the maraschino cherry factory, the D.A.’s office didn’t go for the jugular. The company’s new owners, Arthur’s daughter’s Dana Mondella Bentz and Dominique Mondella, paid a $1.2 million fine.
Crain’s New York Business / Buck Ennis
No one will know the fear and shame Arthur Mondella experienced moments before his death, but we do know what probably would have happened if he lived. Based on the charges, he could have served maybe one to three years behind bars, but probably would’ve gotten probation.
NY Times / Richard Perry
“He was very private. We’d ask him questions when we were little and his response would be, ‘Whaddya, writin’ a book?’” Dana Mondella told The New Yorker. The sisters picked up the baton of the family business without a hiccup, thanks to their sizeable inheritance.
NY Daily News / Jeanne Noonan Freelance
Other than the book in the basement, there was no evidence of any connection to organized crime. After a lawsuit that the family filed against the city for their handling of the search was dismissed, they argued the judge had prejudicial views of Italian-Americans.
While the chapter of a great mystery was put to rest, and the bees and their honey had long since turned back to gold, the Mondella family grieved. They mourned Arthur and came to terms with why a proud small business owner would do what he did.
Fortune / NY Times / Richard Perry
Investigators can’t be sure how Arthur Mondella went about distributing the drugs, or over how long a period of time he operated. Some people have blamed the bees for narcing out a family man, but it’s not that uncommon for nature to foil crimes.
NY Daily News / Debbie Egan-Chin