Living with bees in your ear

Takes a special breed of human being to be a beekeeper.

Stoical, good-humored, a little bit touched in the head, and with a high tolerance for pain, I'm guessing:

CEDAR RAPIDS — Gordon Powell gently pulled a honey bee out of his ear.

"They're what you call hitchhikers," Powell said.

When honey bees are boxed for shipment some of them get away. The escapees, however, smell the boxed-up queen, and they will follow her, even halfway across the country.

About 60 Iowa beekeepers met Friday evening at the Indian Creek Nature Center to pick up their orders of honey bees that had just trucked in from California. Millions of bees hummed in their boxes and hundreds, perhaps thousands of hitchhikers filled the air.

Thousands of bees in the air looking for ears to hole up in and beekeeper Jeanann Bailey still calls it a "relaxing" hobby?

Actually, it does sound kind of cool, and I like bees.  After all, as Powell says, as he de-bees his ear, "I don't care what you eat.  One third of the food you consume can be traced back to pollination by bees."

Read the whole story from the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Photo by the Gazette's Phil Harvey.

Comments

[Rana]

I find beekeeping - and beekeepers - fascinating. I dislike the inevitability of being stung, however. Knowing that bees aren't out to get you, and that the bee dies in the process is cold comfort.

[actor212]

One-third?

I think the proportion of food that is either directly or indirectly traced to pollination is much higher, particularly in America. After all, think about all the grazing animals, too.

[minstrel hussain boy]

we have a lot of beekeepers down here. we are able to buy a lot of specialty honeys. there's the run of the mill alfalfa, but cotton honey, citrus honey, asparagus honey, even onion honey all have their own distinctive tastes.

i could do well as a bee keeper. 'cept for the crappy back yo.