Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea recently announced on social media that he has an apiary, thereby consummating celebrity bee ownership as a hot new trend for the fall season. His reasoning is chiefly environmental, but he’s not alone in being part of a beekeeping elite.
Scarlett Johansson received a beehive as a wedding present from Sammy L Jackson after banging on about how “the planet was going to die” according to her then husband and co-parent to the bees, Ryan Reynolds.
Suggs from Madness was a famous backer of the urban beekeeping movement until all of his bees died and he gave up forever instead. “I’m not taking it personally,” was his central resolve, in the high hopes that the bees didn’t take serious offence to his eccentric ska soundings.
Aiding the global bee population crisis is a large draw for Flea, but apiculture is also a neat way for him to get back at all the hecklers who badgered him over opening his own flea circus, by instead founding a rival bee circus. Meanwhile, reports of his backyard hive population numbers have varied wildly in the media, probably because it’s actually really difficult to guess bee numbers by looking at a swarm.
