[Dixielandjazz] Norm Gary's Super Human TV Show on Sept. 16

[Robert Ringwald]

This from Dr. Norm Gary, a clarinet player in Sacramento.  

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Please check out the news release in this web site for the latest information concerning
my performance on on the Super Human TV show on the History Channel at 10 pm on Thursday,
Sept. 16.  I think you may get a few surprises!
http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/normangarybeewrangler.html
This 'Bee Suit' Suits Him Fine; Norman Gary Billed as 'Human Bee Hive'
Sept. 14, 2010
http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/images/normgarybeeclusterlarge.jpg
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Emeritus professor Norman Gary wearing 75,000 pounds of bees. (Photos by Kathy Keatley
Garvey)
DAVIS
--When honey bee expert Norman Gary "suits up," don't expect a standard-issued bee
suit.
It's not an "ordinary" bee suit. And what he does is not "ordinary."
Norman Gary, a retired University of California, Davis entomology professor, wears
his bees-thousands of them.
And that suits him just fine. To him, bees are not only a science (study of apiculture),
but an adventure.
Gary, 76, who retired in 1994 from UC Davis after a 32-year academic career, will
appear Thursday, Sept. 16 on a History Channel show wearing 75,000 bees. The show,
part of Stan Lee's "Super Humans," is scheduled to be broadcast at 10 p.m., Pacific
Time (Channel 64 for local Comcast viewers).
Host-presenter Daniel Browning Smith has billed him as "the human bee hive" and will
explore bee behavior and the science behind the bees.
A crew from England filmed Gary in mid-May at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee
Research Facility, at Rick Schubert's Bee Happy Apiaries in Vacaville-Winters and
then in a UC Davis open field where the 75,000 bees clustered his entire body.
"That's about 20 pounds, depending upon how much honey or sugar syrup they have consumed,"
Gary said.  "A hungry bee weighs approximately 90 mg and within a minute of active
ingestion she can increase her weight to 150 mgs!"
Norman Gary knows bees. And he knows their behavior.
As a beekeeper, he's kept bees for 62 years and as a researcher, he's studied them
for more than three decades. He's published more 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers
and four book chapters.
Norm Gary
Norm Gary before the cluster stunt. Click to enlarge
.
But he is also a bee wrangler. He trains bees to perform action scenes in movies,
television shows and commercials. His credits over the last 35 years include 18 films,
including "Fried Green Tomatoes"; more than 70 television shows, including the Johnny
Carson and Jay Leno shows; six commercials, and hundreds of live Thriller Bee Shows
in the Western states.
Gary estimates he has performed the bee cluster stunt at least 500 times over the
past 35 years. He remembers 54 performances at the California State Fair alone.
The History Channel episode may be his last professionally staged bee-cluster stunt,
he said. However, he will continue to serve as a bee consultant to video producers
and has just written a beginning beekeeping book, "The Honey Bee Hobbyist," to be
published in early December by Bow Tie Press.
"Bees are trainable, if you ask them to perform behaviors that are in their natural
behavioral repertoire," Gary said.
For the shoot, Gary borrowed New World Carniolan bees from Schubert, whose bee stock
originated with bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey of the Laidlaw facility.  "Bees
are not inclined to sting if they are well fed-happy and content-and are 'under the
influence' of powerful synthetic queen bee odors-pheromones-which tend to pacify
them," Gary said.
http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/images/normgaryfirstshotlarge.jpg
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Norman Gary attracting bees. Click to enlarge.
Bees are attracted to pheromones and cluster on drops of pheromones he places on
himself.  While at UC Davis, he formulated a pheromone solution that is very effective
in controlling bee behavior.
"Bees wrangled by this procedure have no inclination to sting," he said.  "Stinging
behavior occurs naturally near the hive in defense of the entire colony not for the
individual bee, because it dies within hours after stinging.  Using this approach
I have has as many as a million bees clustered on six people simultaneously "
Gary once trained bees to fly into his mouth to collect food from a small sponge
saturated with his patented artificial nectar.  He holds the Guinness World record
(109 bees inside his closed mouth for 10 seconds) for the stunt.
"Most people fear bees," Gary acknowledged. "They think bees 'want' to sting them.
Wrong!  They sting only when the nest or colony is attacked or disturbed or when
they are trapped in a physical situation where they are crushed."
Norm Gary
Norman Gary, the bee man and the musician. Click to enlarge.
Sometimes, with the heavy weight of the bees on his body, he'll receive one or two
stings per cluster stunt. Sometimes none.
Gary, who began hobby beekeeping at age 15 in Florida, went on to earn a doctorate
in apiculture at Cornell University in 1959. During his career, he has worn many
hats, including hobby beekeeper, commercial beekeeper, deputy apiary inspector in
New York, honey bee research scientist and entomology professor, and adult beekeeping
education teacher, and author.
Known internationally for his bee research, Gary was the first to document reproductive
behavior of honey bees on film and the first to discover queen bee sex attractant
pheromones. He invented a magnetic retrieval capture/recapture system for studying
the foraging activities of bees, documenting the distribution and flight range in
the field. His other studies revolved around honey bee pollination of agricultural
crops, stinging and defensive behavior, and the effects of pesticides on foraging
activities, among dozens of others.
Today his life centers around music and bees. He has played music professionally
for more than 50 years and for nine years has led a Dixieland band, appropriately
known as the Beez Kneez Jazz Band, recording two CDs.  He has performed more than
30 years in the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, the world's largest jazz festival.
His instruments include the "B-flat clarinet," which he plays when he's covered with
bees.
"I'm still very active in bees and music," Gary said. "It's a good life."
(Editor's Note: Access his
website
 and the
History Channel
.
Back to News
--
Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
916/806-9551
Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV

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