Were it not for the red bees of Red Hook, Arthur Mondella might still be Brooklyn’s own Cherry King and New York City’s No. 1 pot grower.

He might still be running his family’s maraschino-cherry factory while secretly operating New York City’s biggest-ever marijuana farm in the basement.

The bees changed everything, because the explanation for what so mysteriously turned them red indirectly gave investigators a pretext to twice search the factory after they were unable to obtain a search warrant.