For 27 years, the University of Minnesota’s Bee Lab has put on a buzzing demonstration at the State Fair to raise awareness of the importance of bees to agriculture, called the bee beard.

Jenny Warner, beekeeper in the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, was the first person to wear the beard, which consists of a collection of 7,000-10,000 live bees, and has been helping coordinate it ever since.

“Every insect out there is part of the web of life,” says Warner. “At the Bee Lab, we’re really about studying habitat and recognizing bees as a part of a much bigger picture.”

For example, honey bees—only one of the more than 500 bee species in Minnesota—pollinate around 30% of the food humans eat.

How does the bee beard work?

Jessica Helgen is the program director of the Bee Squad, a team that focuses on outreach and education and collaborates with researchers in the Honey Bee Lab, Native Bee Lab, and Extension. This year, the Bee Squad will demonstrate the bee beard on Wednesday, August 27 at 1 p.m. in the Agriculture Horticulture building to raise awareness of bee research.

Preparing for the bee beard requires an understanding of bee behavior and biology. When starting a new colony, honey bees form swarms, where the worker bees gather outside of their hive in a cluster around their queen. During this process, they are unlikely to sting because they don’t have a nest to defend.

“We make an artificial swarm by shaking young bees and their queen into a screened box,” says Helgen. “They sit for a day and we feed them lots of sugar syrup and keep them in a cool dark place so they’re calm. When we do the beard, we put the queen in a cage under our chin and shake out the box of bees who naturally group themselves around her.”

Sweet conversation

The bee beard gets conversation buzzing every year.

“A lot of people come in not necessarily knowing there’s a difference between bees and wasps or that there are so many types of bees,” says Helgen. “We share information about beekeeping, but we also encourage people to help all of our Minnesota bees by planting flowers, creating habitat, and reducing pesticide use.”

Thanks to the research by the Cariveau Native Bee Lab, visitors can also learn about bumblebees, solitary bees, and Minnesota’s state bee, the rusty patched bumble bee—as seen on Minnesota license plates. Bee Lab staff will share a list of plants and flowers to support bees and other pollinators.

Stop by the booth, learn six ways you can befriend the bee population, or check out the Bee Lab’s website more information.