A swarm of bees occurs when they move from an old hive to a new hive. They will settle like this while scouts go looking for a suitable hive location. When they're like this they have nothing to defend. They have no honey and no lavae to look after, so they have no reason to attack anything unnecessarily. So, if you're slow and calm and don't give them a reason to hurt you, they won't. This guy is providing them with what they want - a new hive - and just encouraging them. Once he gets the queen in there the rest will follow. The sugar water just makes them a bit happier and therefore less likely to attack.

When bees sting, they leave the sting behind and this kills them. It's a real last resort. I do a lot of insect photography and it doesn't bother me at all to pick up a bee. Wasps need a little more respect as it doesn't injure them to sting, so they can be a little more trigger happy.

>> ^robbersdog49:

A swarm of bees occurs when they move from an old hive to a new hive. They will settle like this while scouts go looking for a suitable hive location. When they're like this they have nothing to defend. They have no honey and no lavae to look after, so they have no reason to attack anything unnecessarily. So, if you're slow and calm and don't give them a reason to hurt you, they won't. This guy is providing them with what they want - a new hive - and just encouraging them. Once he gets the queen in there the rest will follow. The sugar water just makes them a bit happier and therefore less likely to attack.
When bees sting, they leave the sting behind and this kills them. It's a real last resort. I do a lot of insect photography and it doesn't bother me at all to pick up a bee. Wasps need a little more respect as it doesn't injure them to sting, so they can be a little more trigger happy.


I read that the sting when applied to the enemy acts as marker for other bees, thus it is very likely that he wasn't stung once while moving this hive. This is absolutely amazing. Nice comment robbersdog!

The King of the Bees.

When I used to keep bees, I had a buddy with about a hundred hives that I would go out with sometimes to help out. He worked all day long without gloves and rarely got stung...I got stung all the time even with gloves on. It's about how you move and I never mastered it.

After a while stings don't bother you much though. Except on the face or head, that always sucks.

The new "Bee Grills". Get it? huh? huh?

>> ^DrNoodles:

The new "Bee Grills". Get it? huh? huh?


David Attenbeerough?

Three weeks ago I was riding my motorcycle when I felt an immediate and painful sting in the fleshy underside of the knuckle of my ring finger. Stung REAL bad.

I whipped my hand up off the clutch to see what the pain was to find a fucking bee had flew ass first at 80km/h(50mph) into me. Everything below the bee's knees was hanging out of my hand!!

I quickly came to a stop and yanked the ass off my hand but the stinger was firmly lodged in. Trying to grab the very end of it with no nails at all on my stubby fingers, I simply worked the stinger under my flesh completely I then ended up with this painful 5mm diameter blacky/red blotch under my skin, taunting and laughing my inability to do anything about it. Still healing now.

So thank you nature, for reminding me of the importance of riding with gloves. Fucker.

The Bee Whisperer ... what a honey of a video! =o)

To many puns in here. It's unbeerabale.

It's great to see a craftsmen at work, someone who is really just -good- at what they do, regardless of profession.

Nice sift.

>> ^RadHazG:

To many puns in here. It's unbeerabale.


I'm getting quite a buzz off it.

Stay to the end! The parasol is priceless!!

What you can´t really see: His beard and mullet is all bees, too!