“You want to ride the bees? Okay, if you think you can!”
He turns toward the inside of the hut.
“No stinging, friends!” he yells. Then he snatches the flask from Zelda and disappears into the back of the hut.

This is an obscure one. Conly appeared in a Choose Your Own Adventure type book based on the Zelda franchise called The Crystal Trap. In the book, the villain Ganon has captured Link and Zelda has a time limit to save him. Along the way, she encounters a hermetic Beekeeper and it can either go well, or not go well. If Zelda heads to his hut as soon as she hears about him, he angrily attacks her with his bees. If she spends time doing other things and learns what he wants, he helps her save the day.

Conly lives just outside of the town of Ruto, only recently come there as a stranger. The people of Ruto eye him with suspicion because he is an “unfriendly old coot” with magic bees and he won’t let anyone taste his honey. Described as a “short round man dressed in heavy robes” he certainly has the symptoms of someone suffering from Beekeeper Rage. In the bad path, when Zelda just shows up and declares she is in a hurry to save Link, Conly sics his bees on her without a thought (though it should be noted that his bees do not kill her in this ending, they just cause her to run blindly through the woods so she falls into a pit). In the good path, in which Zelda offers him some fairy flower sap, an ingredient in his favorite drink, Conly is perfectly happy to take the payment. He not only gives her the honey, but agrees to let her use the bees as transportation. Is it possible that the people of the Ruto just refuse to pay for the honey and Conly’s curmudgeonly reputation is just because he’s sick of moochers? Could be, but we’ve nothing to prove he’s particularly nice either.

Conly’s magic bees sound pretty cool. From a distance they resemble blue and gold sparks, they live in Conly’s hut (entering and exiting through the chimney), they respond to Conly’s requests, and they are capable of surrounding Zelda to carry her off to the castle where she has to save Link. Sounds like some quality bees to me.

Three Honeycombs out of Five.