10/03/2026
Imagine being responsible for covering Matthew McConaughey in thousands of live bees, then watching most of them fly into a tree! Foxhound Bee Co
It's the final day of filming. There's no backup day. The actor is standing there waiting, and the bees are about 20 feet above him.
That's one of the stories Adam Hickman shared with me in our latest podcast, and there's a proper beekeeping lesson in it.
Adam and a team of five Alabama beekeepers worked on the bee scenes in The Rivals of Amziah King. The scenes used real bees, and Matthew had to learn how to handle them.
Before filming, he spent an afternoon opening hives, holding frames and learning about queens, workers and drones. Adam even gave him an empty frame and a hive tool to practise with.
I loved Adam's observation that everyone becomes the same person when they open a beehive for the first time.
You can be a Hollywood actor, but you'll still find yourself asking what's in a cell and why the bees are storing pollen. The bees give you plenty to be curious about.
The biggest scene involved Matthew holding a queen while thousands of bees gathered around his hand and arm.
There was a lot of preparation behind that moment. Adam explained how the team prepared packages with a high proportion of young nurse bees, used a queen those bees already knew, and kept them cool and fed throughout the filming day.
They also prepared a backup package. That mattered, because the first queen intended for the scene died.
Then, when they released the bees for the shot, most of them went up into the tree.
You can imagine how that looked to everyone waiting below.
The beekeepers understood the behaviour they were relying on. The queen was with Matthew, and they expected the bees to gather around her. As bees began scenting on his hand, the cluster in the tree started responding.
Within about 40 minutes, he had 10-12lb of bees covering his hand and arm, right up to his elbow.
That was the part of the conversation I kept coming back to. Adam's confidence came from understanding what the bees were doing. Even with all that preparation, he still had to give them time.
Anyone who keeps bees will recognise that feeling. You've made your plan, you've got everything ready, and then the bees do something that leaves you standing there having a rethink.
On this occasion, there happened to be a film crew and Matthew McConaughey waiting as well.
There's also a lovely personal detail in the film. The smoker used by the main character belonged to Adam's great-grandfather. It was the very object that first showed Adam that keeping bees was possible.
Years later, it ended up on a film set.
If you enjoy bees, behind-the-scenes stories or hearing how people solve unusual problems, this is a fascinating conversation.
I'll put the full podcast link in the comments.
Would you have trusted the bees to come back down, or would you have been staring at that tree getting increasingly nervous?
