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Bee Bearding Competition, China
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Bee bearding is the practice of wearing several hundred thousand honey bees on the face, usually as a sideshow-type demonstration at agricultural shows. Hive bees are attracted into position by a queen in a small cage worn under the chin.
History of bee bearding
Though beekeepers since ancient times have allowed bees to rest on their bodies in order to demonstrate their rapport with the insects, the practice of congregating measurable quantities of bees on the face was initiated by Peter Prokopovitch, a Russian beekeeper, in the 1830s. The practice spread to various "freak" exhibitions at American carnivals by the end of the nineteenth century.
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