Bees in the Estrada Real, Brazil

So many fascinating books are sent to GoNOMAD for review. We don't review, but we do publish excerpts, to give our readers a taste of what's inside. Glenn Alan Cheney is an American, an apiarist (bee keeper) who walked a famous road through the heartland of Brazil. He comes across a fellow apiarist and describes Brazilian beekeeping in his book Journey on the Estrada Real:

"Africanized bees tend to swarm more often than Italian bees. That's both good and bad. It means you can easily lose a swarm, but you can just as easily capture one by poking a hole in a box and leaving it in the woods. These bees rarely kill anyone. But once, someone captured a swarm and was taking it home, and for some reason he left the small hive on the side of the road. He told a local farmer not to mess with it. Along came a highway worker on a tractor, mowing grass. When he hit the hive, the bees exploded. The farmer told the worker to run. He did--faster than the farmer, may he rest in peace."