13 and a half million views: This beautiful beekeeper saved a swarm of bees with her bare hands

A video of a blonde beekeeper rescuing a swarm of bees with her bare hands has appeared on TikTok.

Erika Thompson is a professional beekeeper, so she knows what she’s doing, but many were amazed to see a video in which she, with her sleeves rolled up on her shirt, reaches for an anxious swarm of bees under a large sunshade.

“Without a queen, they can’t live,” she said in the video, showing how she inspected every handful of bees she took off to find the queen that everyone was following.

As this was an unusual swarm that did not have a queen, Erika gave them one that she had with her just in case and stored it in a new hive.

The bees accepted the queen and started sending signals to the other bees to move from the parasol to the new hive.

Erika’s video has been viewed more than 13 and a half million times, and over three million users of that social network have liked it.

Criticisms

There are people that criticise Erika’s approach to the beekeeping profession. Such as TikTok user @LAHoneyBeeRescue, who claims that Erika Thompson, who goes by @TexasBeeWorks on TikTok and has 6 million followers, is improperly handling bees in her videos and setting a dangerous precedent for viewers.

https://www.tiktok.com/@lahoneybeerescue/video/6965227054476446982

But a Reddit thread about Thompson’s account included comments that appeared to defend Thompson, saying that wearing veils and beekeeping gear is a preference and not a requirement when handling bees.

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