Heather Zinger, now with added bees.
A little while ago, we took a trip to the Richmond Honey Bee Centre to see their stripey little critters. We ran into a surprise, because they were filming Heather Zinger, a performance artist from Portland, who was having a bee beard. Heather was putting together a work about colony collapse, and it involved her posing with about 50,000 bees.
I always wondered what made bees willing to hang onto someone like that, but John Gibeau, who manages the Centre, explained that you start by putting a queen bee, housed in a small container, around the subject’s neck. Then, we watched as he took slates from a bee hive and shook them over Heather, making them fall onto her. He’d puff them with smoke occasionally to stop them getting too rowdy. Within about 20 minutes, Heather was so covered in bees that they were almost covering her entire face. She managed to carry out her various poses (which included kneeling and lying ones) without hurting a single bee or getting stung once.
We spent some time with John afterwards talking about all things bee-ey. One of the things he mentioned was that bee pollen can be used to help with pollen allergies. Bees hold the pollen from flowers that they visit on their legs. The Centre puts metal grilles on some hives that the bees must wiggle through to get back in. As they wiggle, the pollen gets caught in the grille, and staff can harvest it.
Bee pollen seems to encourage strong reactions in many. Erin couldn’t stand the stuff. It tastes a little like grass. It is often used as a multi-vitamin, and many people sprinkle it on their breakfast cereal each day. But, in the same way as a small dose of a disease serves as a vaccine, I guess, pollen can be used to ward off the effects of pollen allergy. Start taking it a while before the spring, John says, and it’ll get your system ready for the powdery onslaught.
Be careful when eating pollen, though – some have reported allergies when consuming it, which can be serious. Any history of allergies to bee stings or very severe pollen allergies should give you cause for concern, and you should consult your doctor before taking the stuff. If you’re not allergic to bee stings or pollen (or don’t know if you are) then take just a grain or two of pollen at a time for a few days to see if you keel over. If you don’t experience any adverse reactions, then you’re probably good to go.
