Honeybees are some of the most amazing creatures on the planet. Humans couldn't survive without them. My Daddy used to have beehives. The honey was nectar for the gods and the honeycomb was delicious to chew on. There are people now who raise bees as a profession. They rent them out to farmers to pollinate their crops.
We end up getting about two swarms a year they hang around a few days and then move on. I should make up a hive for them so they can stay. The last one had a ball about one foot in diameter.
I raised bees for years, but they seldom over winter here, so it is a bit of a burden. Alaskan and Norwegian honeys are the highest-rated honeys in the world. I tried a couple years ago to get back into it, as it does improve the pollination of our fruits and other crops. Humans could survive without bees, but our diets would be rather bland and uninteresting, consisting mostly of grains and meat. Tree fruits, nuts and flowering vegetable would not survive beyond current seed stocks and generation. Corn and most other grasses, such as wheat, rye and barley, are mostly wind pollinated and would most likely do fine with less competition from flowering weeds.
A few years ago a friend of ours couldn’t get his mansion insured because some bees were spotted coming out of the top of one of the columns at the front entrance. The columns are made of wood and are hollow and are more for decoration than anything else so Troy (our friend) drilled a hole at the bottom and smoked the bees out then cut a large portion out of the top and middle of the column. Long story short, Betty (Troy’s wife) produced about 30 small jars of honey from the comb which they gave away for Christmas. They thought they had caught the queen and were going to relocate a portion of the comb but I guess the attempt, for one reason or another, came to naught.
My BIL in Colorado has for years. But this was the last year for them....I can't remember the reason though. My sister texted me about it but I really wasn't paying that much attention. They did get a lot of honey though.
I've never danced with bees but I have done the Fire Ant Fan Dance on more occasions than I'd care to remember.