Save the bees video
backlash against TikTok's bee lady not justified, say bee experts
Beekeeping has become hugely popular in recent years, and a new world of beekeeping influencers has recently emerged on TikTok. But it’s not without drama.
Erika Thompson — the bee lady from Texas Bee Works — has gained a following of 6.4 million on TikTok by posting videos of rescuing bee colonies from odd places, including trucks, toilets, and umbrellas. Thompson is at ease in the videos with the colonies, and is frequently not wearing protective clothing, has her hair loose, and handles the bees with her bare hands.
But lately, her videos have been getting backlash from other beekeepers, and fuelled by the media. They say she uses dangerous beekeeping practises, and she isn’t really “saving the bees” as she claims in each video.
We research bee behaviour at the University of Sydney. To us, this backlash is over the top. Thompson is clearly a competent beekeeper who is educating the public about honeybees in her own way on social media. She shows the potential for TikTok to bring interesting biology to the public — and she does it all without getting hurt.
Double standards
Thompson has been accused of “bee-washing” – when someone claims actions are more bee-friendly than they are, usually by inflating the conservation messaging of honey bees over other more threatened bee species.
This could well be the case, but Thompson wouldn’t be the first nor last person to piggy back on a popular message to boost her business.
Bee hotels are a great bee-washing example. You can buy these nesting boxes from many major stores, including Bunnings and Aldi, yet most native bees are ground nesting and bee hotels may even increase disease transmission if not cleaned between seasons.
Yes, Erika Thompson’s videos don’t show much of the mishaps that sometimes happen with beekeeping. But if she wants to send a positive message about bees and increase her following and business opportunities, it’s unlikely she’s going to show videos involving stings.
As researcher and beekeeper Lewis Bartlett pointed out on Twitter, attacks on Thompson seem to have a basis in misogyny, and some even read as downright envy.
In fact, research from 2018 confirmed women are more likely to get negative comments on YouTube, so it is sadly unsurprising a woman is behind the “controversial” videos.
But why isn’t she getting stung?
Honeybees are the leading cause of hospitalisation from a venomous animal in Australia. So it’s shocking and impressive to see someone scoop up bees with their bare hands.
She’s not the only example of someone undertaking what’s been considered by some to be unsafe practise, with other TikTok users show similar non-gloved practises.
While we don’t recommend people who aren’t beekeepers try this, bees can be beautiful, docile creatures. And it’s clear Thompson knows how to interact with bees and how to avoid being stung.
To prevent stings, Thompson gently handles bees, and is likely carefully choosing which bees to film based on how aggressive the colony is.
Colonies can be selectively bred to be less aggressive, and beekeepers will seek out certain subspecies of bee, such as the Italian subspecies Apis mellifera liguistica, which are popular due to their inherent gentle nature.
If a colony is agitated or aggressive by nature, it may be more likely to sting. If you can smell bananas around bees, you may be smelling their alarm pheromone. Even the weather will impact the mood of the bees — nicer weather brings nicer bees.
Beekeepers often use smokers to calm bees before interacting with them. If you scroll through Thompson’s TikTok feed, you’ll see her wearing protective bee keeping equipment and the presence of smokers in a few videos.
There’s a chance the bees are actually stinging Thompson, but she isn’t bothered by them.
Each person has a different reaction to honeybee stings. Some people have a severe reaction, an anaphylactic response potentially leading to death, while others barely react.
Read more: It's bee season. To avoid getting stung, just stay calm and don't swat
This beekeeper is confident there’s no risk of stings from honeybees, so he has taken off his hood and gloves. Sebastian Croker, CC BY-NC
‘Save the bees’
Beekeepers often wear thick full-length bee suits, veil, gloves, and enclosed shoes when working with their colonies. Many colourful options are available. Eliza Middleton @smiley_lizeThompson has proven her skills as an engaging educator on honeybee health and biology, filling her videos with interesting facts about honeybees and explaining their behaviours.
Her videos often end with “save the bees” messaging, but her focus on honeybees can take away from the importance of native bees.
In North America, many native bees, such as the rusty patched bumblebee, face significant threats.
Honeybees, on the other hand, are believed to have originated in Africa or Asia, and are considered native to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. And yet, the number of colonies of honeybees in North America has increased.
Conservation isn’t as simple as saving or focusing on a single species.
By saving a non-native species over a native species, you can unwittingly increase the competition for resources and the native species can’t compete.
How can you help save the bees?
Beekeeping has been soaring in Australia. In Queensland, for example, the number of hobby beekeepers has doubled in the last five years.
While Thompson makes it look fairly easy to move swarms of bees, you should not try and move bees yourself without adequate training.
Bees in swarms are unlikely to sting, and usually move along in a few hours. But if you are concerned, call a professional beekeeper to remove them.
But to help save the bees, you don’t need to be a beekeeper.
Simply planting flowers in your garden and reducing your use of pesticides can make a big difference.
Go outside and get to know your native bees, and maybe even get involved in some citizen science.
Read more: These 3 tips will help you create a thriving pollinator-friendly garden this winter
The Backlash Against the TikTok Bee Lady, Explained
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Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images, Texas Beeworks/TikTok
Oh, honey, we’ve got bee drama.
Popular TikTok account Texas Beeworks is facing backlash for its bee-removal and beekeeping videos. Texas Beeworks’ Erika Thompson (a.k.a. the TikTok Bee Lady) is best known for videos that show her gently scooping up dozens of bees with her bare hands. They’re usually accompanied by a soft-spoken voice-over explaining things like how she finds the queen and why the bees she’s relocating have swarmed a particular surface (e.g., an umbrella). Thompson has over 6 million followers on TikTok, with each video getting millions of views and likes. She’s been profiled by major publications, has appeared on Ellen, talked with Today, and even collaborated with Jason Derulo. Her recent rise to fame has established Thompson as the internet’s favorite bee lady.
However, fellow bee experts have recently raised questions about whether Thompson’s videos are misleading and if her methods are safe for her and the bees.
So, what exactly is going on?
Bee-removal specialists @LAHoneybeeRescue recently posted a series of TikToks noting the potentially dangerous consequences of handling bees without protection. “I’m 100 percent okay with her showing how docile swarms are,” they said in one video, “but the fact is that she goes into removals without wearing any safety gear, wearing black leggings, a black tank top, and a dark-blue shirt that’s unbuttoned overtop.” They also said that Thompson “opening up hives with her hair down … and exposed skin is dangerous.”
“It’s true that bees sometimes get tangled in hair; usually it’s defensive bees,” said Hilary Kearney, a beekeeper and the author of QueenSpotting, a book exploring the life of the queen bee.
Kearney also explained the criticism of Thompson’s dark clothes via email with the Cut: “The theory is that bees have evolved to be defensive towards dark colors because of bears and skunks and other predators that are typically furry and dark.” Hence why beekeepers’ protective gear is often white. “Speaking as a fellow blonde beekeeper,” Kearney said, “I rarely have bees come for my hair.” However, Kearney’s husband, who has dark hair, has had bees come “stingers out” toward his hair.
L.A. Honeybee Rescue also raises the issue that some species of honeybees are dangerous, and it can be tough to distinguish them from less-defensive bees by looks alone. Typically, it’s only possible to make this distinction through DNA testing, microscopic measuring, or observing their behavior, potentially through antagonization, something not shown in the Texas Beeworks videos.
Thompson is based in Austin, and Texas does have species of dangerous bees. In her videos, Thompson primarily interacts with European honeybees, which are more docile when in swarms and are less defensive than other species, though they may still sting when provoked.
While seeing someone scoop up bees with their bare hands may be alarming for most of us, the risk is much lower for someone with extensive experience handling bees. As Dr. Judy Wu-Smart, research entomologist at the Bee Lab at University of Nebraska–Lincoln, told the Cut, the methods used in the video don’t appear to be dangerous for “experienced beekeepers who understand the biology and behavior of honeybees.”
Kearney echoed the importance of understanding bees’ behavior in determining the risk of interacting with a hive.
“Every bee colony and every situation is unique,” Kearney explained, noting that the necessity of certain gear varies depending on the situation. “Many beekeepers work with minimal to no protective clothing.”
As for whether Thompson’s videos in particular are cause for concern, Kearney said she trusts Thompson’s judgment given her experience: “She is in fact the only person who can accurately judge whether it is safe because she is the only person who is there working those specific bees.”
One concern is that nonexperts will try to imitate Thompson’s videos, attempting to handle bees they encounter without the proper training or safety gear. As Dr. Wu-Smart said, “It’s not recommended for just anyone to try, of course.
” Kearney also mentioned that “there are behavioral cues that only experienced beekeepers understand and many of those cues are not detectable via an edited-down video.”
Thompson has been accused of staging some colony removals or using precut pieces of honeycomb in order to make the bees easier to handle. “Even if she’s going in with the suit and doing the entire removal herself, she then takes off the suit and poses as bee-removal Barbie, holding little bits of comb, wearing inappropriate clothes with her hair down, and it’s fake,” L.A. Honeybee Rescue said in one video. “She’s faking the job. That’s not what it looks like.” Thompson has not publicly responded directly to these comments.
It’s not uncommon for influencers to stage their content.
YouTube stunts are faked. Instagram food accounts use editing magic to make meals look more appetizing. It’s not surprising or new for a popular account to create staged content for the sake of anything from aesthetic appeal to time constraints. “Speaking as someone who also makes videos of my removals for social, there may be some shots that she reshoots for those purposes, but that doesn’t make her removals fake,” Kearney said, calling claims that the videos are fakes “unfounded.” However, Thompson’s critics argue that there’s a distinction between content curation and misleading information.
“If this were just content, I wouldn’t care,” L.A. Honeybee Rescue said in one TikTok. “This is not about ‘influencer versus influencer.’ This is me saying what she’s doing … is dangerous,” adding that “people don’t understand that you can’t just look at a bee and know it’s [dangerous] or not.
”
Like most buzz-y issues — excuse my pun — bee conservation and “saving the bees” is more complicated than merely interacting with any species of bee. “[Texas Beeworks] claims to ‘preserve, protect, and increase bee populations across’ Texas without ever mentioning supporting our native bees on their website or TikTok,” entomologist and pollinator-conservation specialist @EntomologyAbby said on TikTok. “Does that mean this company doesn’t support native bees? Not necessarily, no. But relocating pest hives alone isn’t saving the bees.”
As @EntemologyAbby further explained, “Honeybees are not native to the U.S.” While they’re useful agriculture animals, she said, they can be “harmful to native bees and ecosystems.
” As Scientific American has previously pointed out, honeybees are also not at as great a risk of extinction as native species of bees. “Honeybees are widely appreciated, whereas most people are not aware of native bees,” @EntemologyAbby told the Cut in an email. “All bees are important and serve a unique purpose. So, it is key to spread awareness about native bees as they are important both in ecosystems and in crop pollination.”
Thompson responded in a comment to @EntomologyAbby’s video, saying, “If you’d like to know what I do to support native bees, just ask the Texas State Legislature, Environment Texas, Texas Parks & Wildlife, etc.” When asked to further clarify, Thompson added, “For the past four years, I’ve worked to get legislation to protect bees and all pollinators. Even testified in March at the Capitol on HB520,” a bill meant to preserve the habitat of bees and other pollinators.
On Friday, LA Honeybee Rescue, whose TikToks have frequently been cited as a source of Texas Beeworks criticism, spoke to the Cut by phone. (LA Honeybee Rescue asked that they be referred to by their handle rather than their name.) After their videos started gaining attention, LA Honeybee Rescue’s TikTok page was suspended; they told the Cut their account was reported for being run by someone under 13. The account has since been reinstated. “My point was not to attack [Thompson],” they said when asked about their now-viral videos, adding that the work Texas Beeworks does to demystify bees as a whole “is great.” However, they are “sick of being held up to this image of her” when they’re on the job, referring to Thompson’s more clean-cut, stylized videos.
LA Honeybee Rescue, who works as a bee removal specialist, expressed particular frustration at the lack of distinction between beekeeping and bee removal in conversations about bee work.
They described a job that looks very different from the bee videos people might see on their For You Page, one that often requires power tools, heavy-duty protective gear, and ladders to get 35 feet up into a tree in order to remove a colony. They also talked about the ways in which a bee-removal situation can vary in risk. As LA Honeybee Rescue has shown on TikTok, they’ve been stung in the face repeatedly when trying to remove a more defensive colony. They also said there are plenty of removal jobs where they will take off protective gear when interacting with colonies that they’ve established are docile, removing their head covering and scooping bees by hand.
“Had I known the video was going to go viral, I would have phrased it differently,” they said. “But I do still stand behind what I said.” LA Honeybee Rescue also said they’ve received messages from other bee-removal specialists expressing support for their recent videos.
When asked if they’ve spoken with Thompson since the backlash, LA Honeybee Rescue said Thompson sent them $100 on Venmo. They said the money came with a message from Thompson saying she hoped they get their truck fixed soon — it’s currently in the shop — so they can get back to “saving the bees.” That’s the only interaction they say they’ve had with Thompson.
There are also claims that Thompson is an alt-right Trump supporter. There’s been no evidence to support this and appears to be purely based on rumor.
The Cut has reached out to Thompson will update with any comment.
This piece has been updated.
A previous version of this article contained art depicting a fly rather than a honey bee. The lede image has been updated.
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Video: Lebanese beekeeper shows how to make a beard from bees
Spied an idea from Angelina Jolie?
Lebanese beekeeper and tiktoker Joni Abu Rjeili has become famous on social media for his daring tricks with bees, writes the Daily Mail. A man allows his winged pets to climb all over his body, and is not at all afraid of them.
One of his most popular videos was a video with a beard of bees. Rjeili deftly transplants crawling insects from his hand to his face until his entire beard turns into a buzzing bee hive. The beekeeper keeps hundreds, if not thousands, of insects on his face and body, and they don't seem to sting him at all. By the way, do you know why a bee dies when it stings?
The beekeeper claims that he started making videos not only to become famous, but, first of all, to draw attention to the threat to the honey bee population.
He says he fights against pesticides, fungicides, toxic waste and climate change. “Bees also suffer from the use of traditional and old beekeeping methods. Together with agricultural engineers, veterinarians, doctors and research laboratories, during the harvest we try to save the bees, make their honey purer, educate beekeepers and make the planet a better and safer place,” said the Lebanese.
Rzeili is not the first to worry about the problem of the extinction of bees - in 2021, the famous actress Angelina Jolie took part in a photo shoot with a swarm of insects. The body of the actress was smeared with special pheromones that helped the bees move in the right direction.
However, we cannot help but note that Joni Abu Rzheili can do whatever he wants with his beard, but an ordinary person should not repeat this, because bee stings can really be dangerous.
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Beeline launches an information platform that will help reduce the death of bees in Russia
May 14, 2020 11:47
Beeline announced the creation and launch of a free information platform that will help reduce the risk of bee death in Russian regions. Last year, this became a real problem - about 80 thousand bee colonies died in about 30 subjects of the country over the summer.
“We became interested in this topic and met with a very caring community of experts.
Having studied the issue, we realized that one of the significant problems is a disparate chain of communication between farmers and beekeepers, which, as a result, leads to the mass death of bees,” said Irina Lebedeva, Vice President for Customer Experience of Beeline.
The day before, the operator held a round table online, where this topic was discussed. As it turned out, when treating agricultural fields with chemicals, farmers often do not notify beekeepers about the start of work and commit a number of other violations. In addition, now the country is increasingly growing marginal crops that need to be treated with a large amount of chemicals.
“To the seasonal winter death of bees in Russia, summer was added, because no one really needs such our crops as buckwheat and soft wheat, and expensive crops come to the fore, in particular, rapeseed. At the same time, the literacy of farmers leaves much to be desired, because so far chemical treatments are taking place in violation of all laws: fields are cultivated during flowering, by planes, over villages, in the daytime.
The key factor in this problem is the lack of a personal agreement, but the farmer must follow the rules of the game and warn beekeepers about the start of processing 1-2 days in advance, ”explains Aleksey Nikolenko, Doctor of Biology, Head of the Laboratory of Biochemistry of Insect Adaptability of the Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics of the Ufa Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences .
Photo: Beeline
The solution proposed by Beeline is designed to improve communication between farmers and beekeepers. A convenient and free system, which is open to all subscribers of any telecom operator, will automatically warn bee colony holders about the processing of nearby fields, while not disclosing the location of apiaries to third parties.
To connect to the Save the Bees system, farmers and beekeepers just need to register from any device. After registration, each participant will receive a personal account and will see a map with only their apiaries and fields.
In the case of field processing, farmers indicate the date and time of the planned work, and beekeepers within a radius of up to 7 km receive an SMS notification about this.
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According to the director of the Bashkiria National Park and the owner of the apiary, Vladimir Kuznetsov, the use of such a system will greatly help beekeepers: population of wild Bashkir bees. Prompt decisions are needed, because already last season our nomadic beekeepers found themselves in the territories next to rapeseed and later recorded the facts of the death of bees. The measures that agricultural producers are taking today and recommended by the Ministry of Agriculture are ineffective and incapable of solving the problem. Ideally, those preparations that are harmless to bees should be used.
