Bee bearding is the practice of wearing several hundred honey bees on the face, usually as a sideshow-type demonstration at agricultural shows. Hive bees are attracted into position by a queen in a small cage worn under the chin.
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History of bee bearding
Though beekeepers since ancient times have allowed bees to rest on their bodies in order to demonstrate their rapport with the insects, the practice of congregating measurable quantities of bees on the face was initiated by Petro Prokopovych, a Ukrainian beekeeper, in the 1830s. The practice spread to various "freak" exhibitions at American carnivals by the end of the nineteenth century.
Bee-bearding records
The record for the "heaviest mantle of bees" is held by a Chinese national, Ruan Liangming, who was filmed by Guinness World Records wearing an estimated 637,000 bees, including about 60 queen bees, weighing about 63.5 kilograms, in May 2014.
In weddings
In 2009, couple Li Wenhua and Yan Hongxia of Ning'an, China, both beekeepers, married while both were covered in bees.