14 DAY TRIAL // A Chinese beekeeper set out to beat his own world record for the largest number of bees worn on the body, and he succeeded by creating a bee-coat made out of no less than 456,500 insects.
Farmer She Ping from the province of Chongqing, southwest China, is a real bee fanatic, and he already broke the Guinness record for World’s Heaviest Bee Suit in April 2012, when he attracted more than 330,000 of the flying insects.
But this time, in an attempt to prove potential clients that he was selling real honey, he wanted to achieve an even greater feat.
He spent 40 minutes standing extremely still, while bees from 28 beehives were poured onto him, with a combined weight of more than 45 kilograms (100 pounds).
“I first did this at 22, just for fun and out of curiosity. Later on, I would put on the bees just for the sake of making people believe I sell actual real honey,” the farmer said, according to The Guardian.
“The last time I did this, I put on a total of 15 beehives on my body, but today I’m breaking my own record [with 28].”
Crowds gathered to watch She being coated in insects, standing 20 meters away.
His wife and five fellow beekeepers helped the 34-year-old man to achieve his goal. They used queen bees as bait to attract the staggering number of insects until he was completely covered head to toe. The technique consists of attracting the bees into position by placing a queen bee in a small cage hanging from one's body.
This completely insane practice of covering your body in bees is called “bee bearding.” It began as a sideshow-type demonstration at agricultural shows, where beekeepers were wearing several hundred thousand honey bees on the face. They were usually lured by a queen in a small cage worn under the chin.
However, due to the increasing number of attempts to break the record, the “bee bearding” endeavors now involve bees covering the entire face, torso, back, and arms, in order to achieve a greater weight.
As it turns out, She Ping was stung more than 20 times during the dangerous stunt.
China is one of the biggest producers of honey in the entire world, but its exports have been banned in several countries due to concerns of counterfeiting, which somehow explains why Mr. Ping wanted to prove his honey was real.