Abuzz With Anticipation : Entomologist’s Bee-In Is One Way to Say That Fair Takes Wing Today

They were in his mouth, up his nose and dancing on his closed eyelids. They clung to his white hair in buzzing, black dreadlocks, and they caked over his feet until his sneakers looked hairy.

“I’m not sure how many there are--no one had the nerve to take a census,” entomologist Norman Gary said from an elevator-sized plexiglass chamber. “But it’s between 200,000 and a million bees.”

Gary, the self-dubbed “Bee Man” and a main attraction at the 99th Orange County Fair, gave a sneak preview of his bee-taming act on Tuesday. He blanketed himself with the insects while delivering a mini-lecture on bee facts and playing “Basin Street Blues” on the clarinet.

Visitors to the fair, which begins at noon today and runs through July 28, can catch the UC Davis professor’s act every day at 1 p.m. at the Coors Grandstand Arena. The dozen days of the fair include carnival rides, concerts, food, a rodeo, an art show, a circus, daily parades and competitions of all kinds.

Gary’s odd act is in keeping with the fair’s theme, “How Sweet It Is,” a salute to the bee and honey industry.

“Bees are wonderful animals,” Gary said, smiling as an assistant scooped up hundreds of bees with a dust pan and dumped them onto his head and neck. Some bees tumbled down to the chamber’s floor, but most hugged Gary’s blue jumpsuit in layers, chemically drawn by the sweet-smelling queen bee pheromone sprayed on his clothes.

Gary, who is allergic to bee stings, explained that the insects were harmless because they were miles away from their hive, leaving them disoriented and docile. It is a perceived threat to the hive that triggers most stingings. As long as he didn’t do anything that could have been mistaken as a personal attack, Gary said each bee would be as kind as a kitten.

Gary, 57, said he has been fascinated with bees since he was a teen-ager and stumbled upon a dead tree with a thriving bee colony. Since then, he has researched and taught about bees, and assisted Hollywood film and television studios when bee special effects were required.

But all his projects have the same goal, Gary said Tuesday--”informing people about the benefits of bees,” including their key role in plant reproduction and honey making. Besides his act, Gary is also bringing one of the world’s largest hives to the fair, along with a hive cleaved by plexiglass and rigged with microphones, affording fair-goers an intimate view of bee life.

Above the buzzing amplified by his own microphone Tuesday, Gary also debunked some bee myths--such as the fallacy that clothing color can incite a stinging--and delivered one-liners and bad bee puns. For instance, he referred to the clump of insects hanging from his head as the “latest in bee-hive hairdos”.

When asked if he had to be a little bit nuts to do what he was doing, Gary, still coated by about 20 pounds of bees, laughed. “You have to be a lot nuts.”