Bee hives to occupy land owned by St. Louis, Lambert airport [View all]

Hundreds of thousands of honeybees soon will take flight near the newest runway at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
If only the same could be said for commercial jets.

The St. Louis Airport Authority approved a three-year lease with Robins Apiaries to keep bee hives on a 400-square-foot patch of land north of the third parallel runway, the underused landing strip that opened in 2006. The airport will collect $75 a year in rent.

Beekeeper Jim Robins, 76, said he was drawn to the airport location because of the plentiful supply of white dutch clover blooming near the runways and in what used to be Freebourn Park. There also aren’t any pesticides that could prove dangerous to bees, he said.

“I know the airport’s good because I’ve had bees next to the airport for a long time,” Robins said while tending to some of his hives last week in Maryland Heights.

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