🍯 Meet NYC's First Honey and Beekeeping Shop

🏗️ Here's What's Rising on Vernon Boulevard

🏫 LIC Clears the Lot for Its Newest Public School

🎉 Jackson Heights Throws Its Biggest Parade of the Summer

You probably walked past it thinking you knew what was inside. Honey. Maybe a few jars. What you didn't expect is a shelf of raw honeys from all over the world, each one tasting like the specific flowers the bees worked, and a guy behind the counter who can tell you the story of nearly every jar because he knows the beekeeper personally. This is New York City's first honey and beekeeping shop, and once you understand that honey is less like a pantry staple and more like wine, you can't un-know it.

That's the line owner Nick Hoefly wants more people to hear. There's really no such thing as "plain honey." Honey from different plants tastes different the same way wine from different grapes does, bottle to bottle. Nick would know. He started Astor Apiaries back in 2016, and the reason is wonderfully unglamorous: he was keeping bees on his rooftop and needed to be legitimate to sell the honey at craft fairs. Three hives, a handful of markets, the Queens Craft Brigade, that sort of thing. He ran it that way for years before opening the shop on 23rd Avenue in 2023. He'll tell you straight that he's a beekeeper, not a retailer, and that running the store has been on-the-job training. Somehow that makes the place more charming, not less.

Inside, the focus is raw honey, all of it, with a supply chain short enough that Nick either made it himself or knows who did. Beyond the jars, the shop runs classes, workshops, and honey tastings, which are quickly becoming the thing people come back for. There are also hive tours, though those happen over at his apiary in Long Island City, run with the Boys and Girls Club's Sky Farm. 

A heads up that doubles as the best reason to visit. Nick's own local honey is made in small batches, and a tough season means it sells out. When it's gone, it's gone until the next harvest. So the move is to come for a tasting, work your way through honeys you didn't know existed, and grab the local stuff when it's on the shelf rather than counting on it.

This is still a two-person operation, Nick and his wife Ashley, running everything from the bees to the front counter. A second location someday isn't off the table, but for now their hands are full, and they'd rather do this one well. New events get posted every month, so there's always a reason to check back.

Find them at https://astorapiaries.com/ to see what's coming up, and follow along on social at https://www.instagram.com/astorapiaries/ and https://www.facebook.com/astorapiaries/. Stop in, taste a few, and let Nick ruin grocery-store honey for you forever.

Join us in celebrating The Honey House at Astor Apiaries. A neighbor turning a rooftop hobby into the city's first shop of its kind is exactly the sort of story that makes Astoria worth bragging about.

If you've walked Vernon Boulevard through Hunters Point lately, you already know this stretch is in the middle of a glow-up. Add one more to the list: a new rendering just dropped for Vernon Point, a 161-unit residential building slated for the low-rise industrial site at 44-68 Vernon Blvd. — the kind of building that makes you do a double take at how fast this waterfront keeps changing.

The tower will rise 16 stories and span 142,697 square feet, with commercial space tucked into the lower level. The rendering, designed by Archimaera, shows a dark, floor-to-ceiling-glass first story with a triple-height presence, topped by lighter gray floors wrapped in columns of windows and Juliet-style balcony doors. The eastern corner is cut at a slope, there's a setback on the top floor, and the entrance gets flanked by landscaping and garden beds — a nice touch for a corner that's currently just a parking lot and a low industrial building dating to 1953.

Elmord Management bought the site for $28 million and landed a $72.3 million construction and acquisition loan from BridgeCity Capital to make it happen. No construction timeline yet, but the location — a short walk to the Court Square-23rd Street (E/F), Court Square (7) and 21st Street (G) stations, plus the LIC ferry — means whenever it does break ground, it won't be hard to find future residents.

👉 Read more: QNS

One less office building, one step closer to a new school. Demolition is officially complete at 23-10 43rd Ave. in Long Island City, clearing the way for P.S. 508Q — a five-story, 90,000-square-foot school built to hold up to 550 students from pre-K through fifth grade. The site, which had been home to a 5-story office building, is now cleared to street level, though masonry rubble is still being cleaned up.

Beyond general education classrooms, P.S. 508Q will also house a citywide District 75 program serving kids with significant disabilities, including autism spectrum disorders, cognitive delays, emotional disabilities and sensory impairments. Renderings from ESKW/Architects show a facade of earth-toned brick with angular shading meant to evoke fabric rippling in the wind of a passing train — a nod to the elevated tracks running right next to the site. A rooftop play area faces north, catching views of the historic Silvercup Studios sign, and there's a second playground tucked beneath a canopy at the rear of the building.

The school is being built for the NYC School Construction Authority, with excavation expected to start soon now that the old structure is gone. No firm construction timeline yet, but for a stretch of LIC that's added apartment tower after apartment tower, it's a nice reminder that the neighborhood's youngest residents are getting new infrastructure too.

👉 Read more: QNS

Thirty-seven blocks of 37th Avenue turned into one long celebration of Peruvian pride this past Sunday, as Jackson Heights hosted its eighth annual International Peruvian Parade, running from 69th to 87th Street. If you were anywhere near the neighborhood on July 12, you probably heard the music before you saw the crowd.

Marchers included the NYPD Band, NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, Worldwide Academy Firefighter Inc. and the Lions Club, alongside elected officials like Assemblymembers Catalina Cruz and Jessica González-Rojas and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards. "The Peruvian community has been consistently growing in Queens and in New York," Cruz said. "It's such an amazing day to share their anniversary, to share the parade, to share the love and the culture." González-Rojas echoed the sentiment: "I'm so proud to be here representing a large and vibrant Peruvian community here in Queens... The food is incredible and the community is one of the best."

The showstopper, though, may have been the horsemanship display — purebred Friesian and Spanish horses imported from the Netherlands and Spain courtesy of Rancho Sagastume, with equestrians Carlos Sagastume and Ismael Cuadros walking the crowd through the historic art of horsemanship. Not something you see on 37th Avenue every day.

👉 See the photos: QNS

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