You can run all you want from the urge to become a beekeeper in rural Japan, but one day you'll have to turn and face the buzzing.

Escaping the Crowds: A Cautionary Tale

With the conclusion of my visit to Osaka, my time on Japan's Golden Route had come to an end. I was equal parts excited and terrified for what came next - a 2-week volunteering gig at an apiary (bee farm) in the Japanese countryside! This gig was actually the first thing I booked when starting to hash out the plan for this trip back in March, so it's been something that I've been looking forward to for quite some time.

I awoke early on the morning of September 1st, grabbed a light breakfast from the konbini, and headed to Osaka station to catch my highway bus. In an effort to learn from my close call when I barely caught my bus out of Tokyo, I arrived at the station 45 minutes before departure - I really thought this was playing it safe. I walked a bit through the colossal station towards the bus stop before finding a bench and sitting down to eat my breakfast. 

After finishing my convenience store sandwich, yogurt, and fruit parfait I looked around for a trashcan, but as is all too common in Japan, there was none to be found (stick with me here, I promise this is important to the story). This is a part of Japanese culture that I absolutely detest - there are no trashcans anywhere. I think it's some sort of cultural thing where you're not supposed to be eating or drinking on-the-go because it's a sign of your failure to prepare for the day, and therefore they don't put trashcans anywhere. I had the same problem in Korea and it is insanely frustrating. Eh, whatever, I'll just carry my heap of trash with me until I find a trashcan.

I carried on hauling my 2 giant backpacks with a pile of trash cradled in one hand and my phone in the other. Whoops, looks like the signs were misleading and I'm no longer going the right way! Time to backtrack across the station that takes 10 minutes to get from one end to the other. Uh oh, looks like this isn't the right place either...even though I followed the signs, suddenly they disappeared and there is no bus port in sight. Oh, thank goodness, there's the information counter! Nope, doesn't open for another hour. Ok, time is starting to tick...15 minutes till departure. Actually, let's pull up the booking confirmation and read the instructions again. Looks like they included coordinates of where to go, perfect! It's a 12-minute walk away, but I should be fine as long as I hurry.

I want to interrupt here to say that the entire time I was walking in circles around Osaka station, I was desperately searching for a trash can everywhere I went. Starbucks? Nope, only recycle. 7-Eleven? Same story. I even went into a bathroom and, of course, there were only electric hand dryers so no need for trashcans! YAY! This is just perfect!!!!!!!!!!! :DDDDDDD

Anyways, I walked all the way out of the station to the pin that was linked in my booking confirmation and was so relieved to see that it was in fact a highway bus station. I now had 2 minutes till departure, so I hurried up to a worker (the first I had seen that whole morning) and asked where my bus was. He looked at my ticket and to my horror, instead of pointing me to one of the waiting buses, pulled out a map. He pointed to a dot on the map and told me I was at the wrong highway bus port. The correct one was on the opposite side of the station - a 15-minute walk away. ...

My luck had run out. I was done. Finished. I was beat by bad signage, a late-opening info desk, an incorrect map pin on my booking, and a train station the size of a small town that decided to place its two bus ports 15 minutes away from each other. Although, more than this, I was beat by my own gross over-confidence and failure to prepare - poetically illustrated by the heap of hot garbage clutched to my chest.

Good thing I had a backup plan! I knew there was another bus leaving in 20 minutes that I couldn't book online because all the reservable seats were claimed, but they probably still had a few empty seats for walk-up riders. I hauled ass over to the other bus port and found the ticket desk, only to be shot down with an emotionless "bus full, no seats" from the clerk. I asked the clerk if there were any more buses that I could take, he didn't even care to look up from his desk as he shook his head.

At this point, I started to feel the panic creep in. Since I was headed to a less popular destination, there were only a few buses every day that went where I needed to go. Now, my only option was looking like the much more expensive train with multiple transfers, which in my mind are more opportunities for catastrophe. It was now assured that I would be later than I promised my new boss at the apiary, but I might even be hours late! Not a good first impression! 

As I sulked defeatedly out of the bus port and headed towards the train platform, I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. I thought back to all the times before I had been led astray by academic advisors or airline reps - people who are supposed to get paid for knowing their shit and far too often don't actually know their shit. I decided to double check for myself and walked up to the ticket vending machine. I punched in the town I was headed to and...no tickets. You thought I was gonna get a ticket, didn't you? Well, sorry to break it to you dear reader, but this cruel, indifferent universe doesn't always play nice; sometimes things just don't work out. 

But then again, sometimes they do. I punched in the neighboring city and there, glowing on that beautiful little screen, was an empty seat on a bus leaving in 5 minutes. I can make that work!! I nabbed the ticket as quick as I could, found the bus, and hopped on before the universe could throw another wrench in my plans.

With that, me and my heap of breakfast trash were bound for Tokushima City. After a few hours on the road, I found myself in Tokushima Station, a much smaller and quieter station than Osaka's unforgiving beast. I grabbed a snack for lunch from 7-Eleven and decided to cash in on my once-per-day gaijin smash punch card by asking the attendant if she could take my trash. She looked a bit confused at first and then apologetic as she humbly took on my burden. To that woman from the bottom of my heart, ありがとうございました。

From Tokushima, I took a local train onward. The local train was a far cry from the whizzing city lines: cash only ticketing system, slower ride, less formalities on the train, and to my delight, much less crowded. Soon, I disembarked at Kamojima Station in Awa, Japan - my new home for the next 2 weeks as I learned to keep bees, harvest honey, and so much more.

Countryside Culture Shock

As someone who had spent his past 2 weeks in Japan's biggest cities, rural life obviously carried some culture shock. Much of this was expected of course - slower pace of life, more dated infrastructure, spread-out landscape - the type of thing you would experience with a similar transition anywhere in the world. However, there is one difference between rural and urban life that is so dramatic, I am inclined to believe it might be unique to Japan: the age of the population.

Instead of inheriting property to carry on a family farm, Japanese youth are flocking in droves to the big cities for higher wages, better quality-of-life, and better connectivity. The effects of this phenomenon are compounded by 2 other economically linked trends.

First, Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. Obviously, this doesn't help the issue of getting help on Grandpa's farm. Second, Japanese farms generally do not hire foreign workers. Historically, Japan has had one of the lowest employment rates for immigrant workers in agriculture among developed nations, with a report in 2023 stating that the figure was 2.8% of the total work force. When compared against America's ~70%, you can see how little that slice of the pie really is. And unfortunately, Japan continues to follow the global trend of cracking down on immigration as a result of growing economic uncertainty and deeply rooted xenophobia, so that fraction isn't getting any bigger.

As a result of this 3-piece wombo combo of kids moving to the city, folks not having babies, and farm owners refusing to hire immigrants, rural Japan is experiencing a sort of slow-motion labor collapse as older folks become unable to work - and I could notice it right away. Simply put, young people are just not around. Outside of the few times when I happened to be driving through town around the time school got out, I felt like I never saw anyone under the age of 35. Also, there are a lot of abandoned properties and overgrown lots. Perhaps these are the family farms that nobody inherited.

Of course, these were not the only differences from the city that I noticed. Here are a few more rapid-fire ones:

• Obviously, far fewer tourists. However, folks in Awa are much more accustomed to seeing foreigners than your average rural farming town because of the Shikoku Pilgrimage - a 750-mile-long loop through 88 temples around the Shikoku Island that happens to pass through Awa. The Pilgrimage follows the path of the Kūkai, the first Japanese Buddhist monk as he spread Buddhist teachings throughout ancient Japan and draws crowds of adventure seekers from all around the world. Pilgrims are very easy to distinguish thanks to their signature white robes, conical hat, and walking stick.

Shikoku	Pilgrims

The Pilgrimage route. I lived right next to temple #10!

• I had the opportunity to drive quite a bit while in Awa, and there's definitely a learning curve. The most obvious differences are driving on the left side of the road and having a reversed steering column from what I'm used to. I kept hitting the damn wipers instead of the blinker!! Also, unless you are on a major road through the middle of town, all the roads in Awa are single lane. This makes learning to share the road and squeezing through the tiniest of gaps imperative skills. Our trucks were Daihatsu Hijets which are absolute BEASTS of trucks. We drove through everything from thick bamboo groves to swamps and those little trucks never faltered. They're also just incredibly fun to drive.

• Aki's house, along with most other houses in the area, is very old and traditional. This means tatami mat bedrooms, sliding doors, vault toilet, hang drying laundry, no AC, and most importantly for me, low doorways. I can't even estimate a guess as to how many times I banged or scraped my head on a doorway. If I hadn't lost it already, I've now surely forfeited my spot beyond the pearly gates from the sheer number of unholy words I let fly on a daily basis as I flattened the front of my skull against a doorframe. Old Japanese houses are NOT built for people of my stature. As Aki told me one day, "This house is built for a little Japanese grandma!"

My bedroom was a converted entryway!
It took a few nights, but I got used to sleeping on the floor. :)

• Japanese living spaces in general are smaller than what we westerners are used to, but this was most noticeable to me in the kitchen. Fridges and cabinets are also smaller than ours and as a result, Japanese people make much more frequent, but lighter grocery trips. It seemed like Aki made a trip to the grocery store at least once every other day.

New Characters in the LLEU (Landen's Letters Extended Universe)

From left to right: Me, Kayla, Renaud, Aki
Nobody say anything about my farmer's tan...

• Aki
• Aki is the owner of Kōdō Bee Farm and served as my host during this experience. He never hesitated to share his home, his food, and his incredible wealth of knowledge with us volunteers. He always had an answer for any question I threw at him and explained all of our tasks in great detail. His love and respect for the bees is infectious, and his work ethic is inspiring. He's also the epitome of the word "badass" - on countless occasions I watched him tend to the bees without gloves and many of the other safety items us volunteers donned. Oh yeah, and he's a nationally ranked Smash Bros player!
• Kayla
• Kayla was one of my fellow volunteers on the farm! She's from California's Bay Area, but like me is on an odyssey throughout Asia. Now, she's venturing throughout southeast Asia as I will be soon, so I hope we can reconnect in the not-too-distant future!!
• Renaud
• Renaud was the other volunteer who I shared my time on the farm with! He's from Quebec and had already been in Japan for a few months by the time we met with plans to stay till next Spring. Now, since leaving the farm, he's begun his journey on the Shikoku Pilgrimage! Godspeed Renaud!
• Tombo
• Tombo is Aki's cat who Aki made very clear on our first day is the king of the household. He's a very cute, well-mannered boy until about 9pm when he starts sprinting through the house and biting everyone ankles. I was sleeping in Tombo's favorite room in the house, so he frequently hung out with me during down time.
  

• Akane
• Akane is Aki's shiba inu! She's very shy around strangers, but once I took her for a walk she decided that I must be an alright guy. Some of our walks were very exciting - on separate occasions, we ran into monkeys and a family of wild boars! Shiba inu are hunting dogs and you can definitely see it in Akane! She has an infinite supply of energy and is itching to attack every bug she comes across (except wasps which she steers clear of). She and Tombo have a bit of a precarious relationship - she has lots of fun chasing and taunting him, he doesn't find it nearly as amusing.

Buzzin' Around: My Daily Routine

6:45 ~ Wake up, get dressed, and join the rest of the crew in the kitchen for breakfast.

7:30-8 ~ Get ready for the day ahead! Start by prepping our supplies and driving out to the first hive.

8-12 ~ Work time. Usually, we would drive between 3-4 locations tending to the hives.

12-1 ~ Lunch! Easily my favorite time of the day; Aki either cooked us a meal back at home or treated us to lunch somewhere around town.

1-5:30 ~ Free time! Most days, I took this time to work on this blog, my upcoming travel itineraries, or my Chinese visa application. I also loved taking Akane for walks around Awa and into the nearby mountains.

5:30-6:30 ~ Cook and eat dinner. Sometimes family-style meals, sometimes solo.

6:30-10:30 ~ More free time and winding down for the night before heading to bed.

As you can see, I really did not have a busy schedule, but this pushed me and the other volunteers to give our all during our 4-5 hours of work per day. The work was really not very difficult, but did require acute attention to detail and a lot of confidence. Aki's apiary is home to over 400 hives, so speed and precision are a necessity in order to keep up with the pace of the farm. I loved my daily life on the farm and really looked forward to the work every single day. 

The Beekeeper's To-Do List

This is a list of tasks that the other volunteers and I helped with during our time at the apiary! These are listed roughly in the order that they are done (over the course of many months or years) to go from building your first hive to being the boss of a honey-pumping machine. NOTE: There is definitely A LOT that Aki does behind the scenes and in other parts of the year, these are just the tasks I got to learn about and help with!

Process lumber for frame construction

One rainy day during my stay, we drove to a local woodshop to process lumber for building hive frames. We spent the afternoon cutting down long boards with the miter saw and drilling holes through the smaller pieces. Unfortunately, Aki and Renaud had to go to the hospital to tend to Renaud's injured ear, so Kayla and I put our heads down and locked in. With the help of a woman at the woodshop who saw us working hard and brought us both a bottle of mugicha (cold barley tea), Kayla and I finished processing the mountain of lumbar by lunchtime.

	Kayla and Renaud doing all the work while I supervise (hardest job) 😎

Construct frame borders

Back at the home workshop, we learned to nail the border pieces together to make an empty frame.

I found this picture online, but it looks pretty similar to the frames we built!
In the story above about the woodshop, we were making the smaller, side pieces of the frame.

Wire frames and fit each one with wax

After the frame has been constructed, we need to get it ready for the bees to use. First, we string the frame thrice with metal wire. Each wire needs to be made taught with pliers and clamps, which is a process that took lots of practice to get the hang of. After it's strung, fresh wax sheets need to be affixed to the wires to give the bees a foundation to build on. To do this, the wax is placed behind the metal wiring in the frame. Then, we would switch on a battery connected to a jerry-rigged wooden rod with 4 metal contacts jutting out along its length. With the press of a button on the top of the wooden rod and by pressing the 4 metal contacts to the metal wire, electricity would flow, heating the wire and causing it to melt into the wax sheet. Once submerged, release the button and repeat with the other 2 meal wires in the frame. This step also took a lot of practice because if you press too hard or hold the button for too long, the metal wire will slice right through the delicate wax sheet! After making literally hundreds, though, I got a pretty good feel for it. After this, the frame is complete and ready to be added to a hive!

Feeding the hives

During seasons where rainfall is especially lacking, beekeepers need to supply their hives with a sugar water mixture to make up for the lack of nectar in the surrounding flora. Unfortunately, this year has been an exceptionally dry one. Most mornings before checking the hives, we would mix together a couple hundred liters of sugar water and load them into 30-liter jugs. The jugs are then lugged out to the hives and used to restock the feeder frames in each one!

One of the trucks loaded up with jugs of sugar water.	The feeder frame is the one on the far left that has the opening on the top. It's basically just a reservoir for us to pour sugar water into!

Checking hive health

Checking the health of the hives was our main task when out on site. The basic idea is that we need to make sure the hive has a healthy queen that is laying eggs. To do this, you pry each frame out one by one and hold it up to the light to check for eggs in the honeycomb. Once you find eggs you can stop checking, put the frames back in place, feed the hive, and move on to the next. This isn't as easy as it sounds, folks - eggs are TINY and incredibly difficult to spot. Additionally, there is a lot going on in any particular hive frame. It's our job to know how to spot the difference between empty honeycomb and honeycomb with honey, eggs, larva, pollen, brood, or drone brood. Oh yeah, and of course there's a bunch of pissed off bees buzzing around.

Eggs
A frame packed with honey!	Found the queen!

Expanding or transplanting hives

Ok great, the hive is healthy, but what if it's too healthy? It's also a beekeeper's job to watch for hives that are having growing pains. I've included the same picture from up above, see how there are 8 frames (not including the feeder frame)? If we find brood (larvae that are about ready to be born) in the vast majority of those frames, say 6/8, then we need to expand the hive. In the case of the hive in the picture, you can see that there is still some empty space on the other side of the feeder frame. That makes it easy on us - just get one of our new frames that we just finished making and add it to the hive. But what if the hive is completely full and still needs more space? First of all, that's great news - the hive is thriving!! Second of all, we would then grab a whole new empty hive box and stack it on top of the full one. Then, transplant a few of the frames from the full layer to the new layer, add a couple empty frames to give them space to grow, and go on your way. 

In some more rare cases, it's also necessary to transplant an entire hive into a new box. This is usually done when the hive is struggling and has a low population, usually due to being overtaken by wasps or roaches. To try and give the hive the best chance we can, we will transplant it into a smaller hive box and potentially even move it to a different location.

Collecting honey frames

I was very lucky to be at the apiary during one of the 2 short periods every year that Aki harvests honey! Towards the end of my time at the farm, we spent days searching for and collecting honey frames instead of checking hive health like usual. We determine which frames to take based on weight! Once the bees have finished filling up a honeycomb with honey, they cover it up with a layer of wax to tell the other bees not to touch it. As a result of the honey and the extra wax, full honey frames are VERY heavy. The picture on the left is the best honey frame I found; you can see almost the entire frame is filled with capped honey. In this case, as long as there aren't any brood on the frame, we brush off the bees and take the frame back home. Brushing the bees off the frame was probably the scariest part of the job for me. Most of the time, the bees will just crawl right back into the hive and go on with their work on a different frame. However, I had a few cases where the bees were extra pissy from a combination of poor weather and worse brushing technique from me. Got a few stings on the hands and arms, but learned my lesson to move quickly with confidence and precision. Also, smoke those little buggers both before and after brushing!

Don't worry, we don't harvest honey from small hives and make sure to leave enough in the big hives for the hive to survive comfortably through winter.

Harvesting honey

Once we've collected the honey frames and brought them back home, it's time for the fun part: extracting the honey! To start, the wax caps need to be removed from the honey-filled combs with either a carving knife or a metal comb. Harvesters beware - wasps of all kinds are just as interested in the honey as we are!! They swarmed around us as we worked to de-cap the honey frames, but were much too preoccupied gorging themselves on the drippings to worry about us. Next, the uncapped frames, now dripping honey, are loaded into a giant centrifuge. After a quick spin cycle to pull the liquid honey out of the frame, it's collected in big metal jugs. Lastly, the frames are removed from the centrifuge and go back into the farm's inventory! Additionally, Aki collects and melts down the wax that's removed from the frames to be made into fresh wax sheets or used to patch leaks in feeder frames!

Side note: I couldn't resist and took a bite out of some of the honeycomb we cut off the frames. One bite is all you need to understand why bears go through the pain of battling a hive to get some of that stuff. Indescribably delicious!

Bottling and labeling honey

Once the honey has been extracted, it's filtered. Then it's filtered again. And again. And again. There's a lot of filtering, but it's necessary! Since the only product of this farm is pure, filtered, raw honey, there's no other steps to ensure purity of the honey. Once it's been filtered, it's poured into jars, weighed and sealed. After that Aki loads up the filled jars and takes them to a labeling facility. At last, the honey is ready for the customer!

Delivering honey to the distribution center

The last step of the honey's journey to the shelf is the distribution center. At the facility, jars are given price tags and are distributed amongst collection bins for all the grocery stores in Tokushima and Osaka (Tokushima buyers get a discount for being local). Pretty soon, trucks come pick up the goods and take them to the grocery store!

And that's it! That's how farm-fresh honey gets from the hive to your local grocery store's shelf. I thought it was interesting to see the whole process from beginning to end, I hope you did too! :)

The honey from Aki's farm is easily the best I have ever had and Japan is famous for its thick, fluffy, cloud-like milk bread. One afternoon, Renaud and I were sitting at the kitchen table eating honey on toast (obviously a dietary staple for a beekeeper) and came to a shared realization. We agreed that it simply doesn't get better than that; farm fresh honey on perfectly toasted Japanese milk bread - that piece of toast was the best we would ever have in our lives, and that's okay. If you'd like to try some of our honey, I sent as many jars as I could afford to ship back home. You'll have to come over and try some when I get back in December!

Days Off

Although there's a lot to do around the farm, we still took a day off every now and then to relax, recharge, and explore the area. Here's a few of the highlights!

• Beach day with JET folks
• JET stands for "Japanese exchange and teaching". It's a program that allows English speakers from all around the world to move to Japan for up to 5 years to teach English, assist with English language program management, and exchange culture with Japanese students of all ages. JET folks are usually younger people, so Aki has made friends with many of them in the area and frequents their community events. On one of our days off, we enjoyed a day on the beach with local JET people swimming, playing sports, and chatting (I was overjoyed to be hitting around a volleyball for this first time in a long time!). Although the weather wasn't ideal, it was still a great experience to meet and hear from people doing such a cool job. After talking to most of our new JET friends, it seems to me like the JET program is very similar to the Peace Corps.

• Getting humbled at a Japanese bouldering gym
• On one of the very rainy days, we went to a local bouldering gym in Awa. Most of the time, we were the only ones in the entire gym, which was not only very fun but also relieving because there were less people for me to make a fool out of myself in front of! Not sure if it's a common trend throughout Japan as a whole or if this gym specifically was an outlier, but the routes were very hard!! Or maybe I'm just out of practice...nahhhhh that couldn't be it - definitely the gym's fault! After climbing, I had a pretty funny interaction with the gym owner who was taking our picture. He seemed confused when using my phone and when he handed it back, kept saying something about "cha-click". With Aki's translation help, I learned that the was confused and amazed that my phone didn't make the camera shutter noise when he took the photo. To us Americans, that doesn't seem strange at all, but in Japan, all phones are required by law to make the shutter noise every time a photo is taken to help prevent tōsatsu (the act of taking photos or filming someone without their consent, particularly sneaky or illicit voyeurism).

• Hiking to the 12th temple in the Shikoku Pilgrimage

• Coolin' off in the river

• A night in Tokushima
• One night, Renaud, Aki, and I drove into downtown Tokushima to visit a live jazz/blues bar and a retro gaming bar! I was pleasantly surprised by the vibrancy of Tokushima's nightlife despite being a smaller city!

Buggin'

My time at the apiary changed me for the better in a lot of ways, but I think one of the most dramatic was my development of a much higher tolerance for large insects. You ever notice that villains and monsters in Japanese culture are often mutated bugs? Mothra from Godzilla, chimera ants from Hunter x Hunter, the entire movie Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, literally 100s of Pokemon, countless depictions of Yokai in Japanese folklore - the examples are everywhere. Turns out, this cultural obsession with monstrous bugs is based in reality. Awa is a wet, dense jungle situated in a fertile valley, making it the perfect place for unnecessarily large insects to call home. Every day we worked alongside giant wasps, spiders the size of my hand, unkillable roaches, earthworms and centipedes as long as my forearm, swarms of ants, praying mantises (manti? mantes?), cicadas, dragonflies, and horseflies. Before coming to the apiary, I would have considered myself more stoic around insects than the average person, but the size of these creatures put my resolve to the test. Put simply, this job isn't for you if you're gonna be squeamish about bugs - that's a lesson all of us volunteers had to learn quickly. 

There was one night shortly after arriving when I had just settled into bed and turned off the light when, to my horror, I felt something quickly crawling up my leg. I swatted the attacker away and after mashing my phone's flashlight button in a state of panic, I shown my light on a roach the size of a walnut staring back at me. I now know that you're not supposed to smoosh roaches, but I was not yet privy to that fact at the time of this story. Long story short, I tried to smash it and actually got it! It's not an exaggeration to say I put all of my weight into smashing this roach, so I was sure it was toast. However, when I lifted up the metal can I smashed it under, it disappeared in the blink of an eye. Somehow, it lived. And was probably plotting its revenge.

After the roach incident, I had a bit of a moment of self-reflection and decided that I had to toughen up. I was working every day with insects that could sting me for hell's sake, and I wasn't scared of them; why was I more skittish around insects whose biggest crime was being ugly? From that day on, the roaches, wasps, and even the huge huntsman spiders in the dark corners of the house didn't bother me much at all.

	Wasps massacred this hive :(

My Favorite Bee Facts

• Honeybee societies are matriarchies meaning all worker bees are female! Male bees are called drones, and their only purpose is reproduction. Aki told us with a giggle that most drones really serve no purpose at all because the odds of one of them successfully mating with a queen is incredibly slim. They are kinda like individual sperm - the overwhelming majority of them don't accomplish their goal, so nature makes up for this by making a lot of them. Isn't it funny how nature is often praised for being perfectly resourceful and harmonious while there are just as many examples, like this one, of nature being hugely wasteful?! I guess if it works, don't fix it.

• The queen is often thought of as the leader of the hive, but this is actually not the case. The worker bees are completely in charge of hive operations. The only reason a hive will physically follow a queen is simply because she is the most difficult to replace.

• Speaking of queens, the way a new queen is created is wild. When the old queen dies, the workers get to work feeding a fertilized larva a protein-rich concoction called "royal jelly". They really just feed a normal bee larva an enormous amount of food to make them grow bigger than the average worker bee. There's an issue though - worker bees don't know when other worker bees start feeding a larva royal jelly, so many queen brood are made at the same time throughout the hive. As soon as the lucky first queen hatches, it immediately parades through the hive on a victorious rampage, destroying all the other prenatal queen brood. This is another interesting case of nature being wasteful that Aki specifically talked about. He said that he didn't really know why bees don't allow multiple queens in a hive since it would be a surefire way to make the hive more efficient and would strengthen the hive's single point of failure. Perhaps bees still have some evolving to do in the next couple millions of years!

• Worker bees live for a few months, but queens live for multiple years!

• Bees DO NOT mingle amongst neighboring hives. Bees can determine if another bee is a member of the hive by smell and if they don't pass the sniff test, trouble ensues. If a bee that doesn't belong wanders into the hive, there are legitimately bees that act as security and kick out the intruders. So wild.

• Honey never goes bad, but sometimes the moisture and contaminants on a frame can cause mold to grow on the honeycomb if the frame is left in storage for too long. The bees don't mind though! If you put a moldy frame in a hive, the bees will clean it and carry on with business as usual!
  

• Bees have an incredible sense of direction. Not only are they very good at finding their way back to their hive, but they have been proven to understand cardinal directions by using the rise and fall of the sun. The process of the sun rising in the east and setting in the west is called Kōdō in Japanese, hence the name of Aki's apiary.

2 More Things That I Didn't Know Where Else To Put

• 
  While working on hot days, we wore "work vests" which are lightweight vests outfitted with 2 battery-power fans!! I have no idea if these are an only-in-Japan thing, but I've personally never seen them in the states and let me just say that they are a GAME CHANGER. GAME. CHANGER. I saw construction guys wearing them in the big cities and thought that there's no way they cool you off that well...what a fool I was. Thanks to the elastic band around each of the openings in the vest, the cool air stays trapped inside and continuously cools you off all day. Plus, the cherry on top - on a single charge, both the fans can run on high for the whole day! I really can't recommend these things enough and I highly, highly suggest you order one online if you work outside in the heat often. If I wanted to make a stupid amount of money, I would find a way to buy these in bulk and send them to Arizona. 

• During my time in Awa, I went to the onsen for the first time (and many times after that)! For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, an onsen is a Japanese public bathhouse and they are very popular. Here's how it works 

First, pay a couple bucks for entry and proceed to your gender's locker room. Then, take it alllllll off. Yep, everything - no towel, no trunks, no nothin. Let it all hang out. Then, enter the bathhouse and proceed to the shower area for a thorough wash. Only after that are you permitted to enter the pools.

We went to quite a few different onsens, but most shared a similar layout with a few warm pools, a cold plunge, and a pool with high-powered massaging jets split between indoor and outdoor areas. Many also included a sauna and an electric bath. To my surprise they wer- wait, wait, wait. An electric bath?!?!?

Yes, you read that correctly. Before going to the onsen, I was told by Kayla about the electric bath that supposedly stimulates your muscles by sending electric currents through the water. Sounds pretty cool! When I went to the onsen, I watched some of the old guys go in it and they didn't react at all so I imagined it must be pretty light work. I waded over and upon entering the electric zone immediately realized my mistake. Of course those geriatric farts weren't reacting, they probably can't feel a thing in the little muscle they have anyways!!! My knees instantly buckled and both my arms locked out; I was straining just to keep my head above the water. Eventually, I clawed my way out of the bath, probably giving all those old geezers a pretty good chuckle. All that being said, I still think it's something you gotta try once if you get the chance; maybe one day I'll go back for a rematch.

No tattoos sign outside of an onsen.

In general, the onsen is a very relaxing and convenient place that I never had any reason to be nervous about. It's a shame that western culture over-sexualizes nudity to such an extreme that something like this is hard for us to imagine. Yeah, it's weird for about the first 2 minutes, and then it's not and you just get to relax. Some people are also hesitant to try the onsen because they traditionally don't admit people with tattoos out of regard for the yakuza, but as long as you don't have multiple full sleeves, you'll probably be fine. Kayla has a few tattoos and never had any problems. The small, local onsen we went to twice is tattoo friendly and I actually shared the bath with a yakuza guy so I'm totally gonna brag about that forever.

Misc Photo Gallery

Awa sunset	Local jazz cafe!
Preparing the smokers	We spent many nights playing cards around the kitchen table
Chef Kayla's cooking class	View from the top of a waterfall I climbed! Zoom in to see the people down below
Pagoda at the 10th temple in the Shikoku Pilgrimage. Renaud and I walked Akane there one day; she didn't like the temple.	The architecture of Aki's house is so funny to me. I think it's just 3 houses stapled together.
Walked Akane to a nearby shrine one day and she pooped in the shrine grounds!!!!! That's gotta be a lifetime of bad luck...	Daily commute
Visiting the Awa Sand Pillars!	Overlooking Awa
Aki's cooking was always the best!!	I always make way too little sauce for pasta...
Spotted at the konbini: glizzy in a bag WITH CONDIMENTS	First day on the job - I really thought I was gonna wear sunglasses under the face net...
Aki took us to his favorite Udon place one day for lunch. It did not disappoint!	If you zoom in on these bees, you can see the pollen they're all bringing back to the hive!

Where To Next?

Spending 2 weeks learning the art of beekeeping on Aki's farm was one of the most impactful, rewarding experiences of my life. I really learned more than I ever thought I would and garnered a deep respect for honeybees and beekeepers like Aki. On top of this, I feel so fortunate to have had such a positive first gig with Worldpackers and to have gotten to work with 3 amazing people who I am lucky enough to now call friends. If anyone has any questions about bees or beekeeping, write them in the comments section and I will ask Aki for you! 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, but that doesn't mean that it's all downhill from here! Tune in next time for a shorter post about my last 2 days in Japan exploring Tokushima, Naruto, and Hiroshima before heading to our second country on this grand adventure: Hong Kong! Until then, thank you for reading and be well.

バイバイ!

🎵NOW PLAYING🎵

The entire Luv (sic) hexology - Nujabes

^^^if you use spotify, I recommend this playlist with custom mixing

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0VsVC2521hcfPrWRnLPZGN?si=584b25a90337407d

(that's already a lot of music, so I'll leave it at that haha)

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