ST PAUL, Minn. — You see them buzzing from flower to flower and plant to plant all summer long.
Bees.
But for some bee enthusiasts, just looking at the bees isn’t close enough.
So sometimes, people wear bees as a beard.
On Wednesday, the University of Minnesota Bee Lab “wore” around 10,000 bees as a beard at the Minnesota State Fair Agriculture Horticulture Building.
“It’s really prickly,” said Jenny Warner with the U’s Bee Lab. Wednesday was Warner’s seventh beard at the State Fair.
To entice the bees to swarm on a human’s face, the hive’s Queen is placed in a small wire cage and tied with string under the chin. The Queen will release her pheromones and the other bees follow.
One thing to consider when wearing a beard of bees, according to Warner, is making sure to get a good shape to the beard.
“Sometimes it looks like a poncho or shawl, sometimes they want to cluster to one side… I just wanted it to turn out,” Warner laughed.
But why bother to continue a tradition started by the Bee Lab 25 years ago?
“The first time we did it, we were really trying to show people that honeybees are gentle. There was a lot of fear out there, a lot of disconnect with nature and we’re seeing that change,” said Warner.
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