Honey Fest was a big success this year! It was only one day instead of the two or three we usually have. However, we had record turnout at Wyck and record sales at our honey table. It was a blast!

The really amazing thing was the bee beard. Don Shump has been doing bee beards at Honey Fest for as long as we’ve had Honey Fest and it’s quite a show. You can see in the image above the set up. Don sits on a chair in front of the crowd and gets them ready.

Conditions were dicey for a bee beard. Scheduled for 3pm storm clouds were moving in and rain was forecast to start at 3:15 or so. Don got through 10 minutes of his opening talk before the rain started but instead of drenching us we got a few drops before it moved on. The beard was a go.

I’m not sure the video captures it fully but shows the moment it all started.

When Austin shakes the board in the video above 1,000 sticky honeybees take to the air! However, instead of running and screaming everyone was delighted when the bees started landing on them as they will if it’s cold and cloudy and they’re covered with sugar water.

The key was the spell Don casts on his audience. He prepares folks for the possibility of a bee landing on them, and his stories and delivery are so good that by the time the bees come out everyone is hoping for a bee to land on them.

So when they started to do just that it was like a whole crowd bee beard. Almost no one got stung and no-one who did complained. It was the most uncanny thing I’ve ever seen.