As near as I can tell, Higglytown Heroes was a show about all the different occupations people have in Higglytown. It must have been made by people with good taste, because there’s an episode about a Beekeeper. Kids need to learn. The episode, called “Two Bees or Not Two Bees” naturally, features some kids and some old people and a squirrel (presumably the main cast) who are saddened to learn that the bushes that should be full of higglyberries are not. They summon the Beekeeper to help them figure out what happened.

When she arrives, the Beekeeper Hero investigates a beehive near the bushes and finds it is abandoned (what happened to the bees is unknown), so she has her own bees pollinate the area. She does all this while giving educational lessons to the children. A month later the berries have grown, so the Beekeeper Hero treats the kids to delicious treats of berries and honey. But when the kids hail her as a hero, she makes sure to deflect that thanks to the bees, who are the real heroes. That’s a classy move.

Apart from impeccably-trained bees, does she have any supernatural powers that seem to be different than all the other toy-people of her world? Not that we see. But she has bee-shaped earrings, which is nice.

Three Honeycombs out of Five.

Walter Blane is a Beekeeper who appeared in Mystic #7, a horror comic from 1952. As I’ve noted before, science and beekeeping go together well, and Blane is indeed a scientist doing “special work on bees!” Although we don’t see Blane participating in the actual beekeeping side of the operation, he’s identified as a beekeeper in the text, he clearly loves the bees (they are his “sweet little friends”), and his hives seem to be thriving. The actual beekeeping done in the story is done by a greedy man named Casper who is paid well to take care of Blane’s bees while the scientist is stuck in his laboratory doing research and experimentation. When Casper, the protagonist, learns that Blane has a serum that prevents him from being stung, though Blane notes that it is designed to work with his own physiognomy and any other person who took it would be at risk, Casper steals the serum and drinks some. This, naturally, results in his head mutating into that of a giant bee.

That serum is interesting. All we know for sure is that it prevents him from being stung. It prevented Casper from being stung as well, though it turned him into a bee/human hybrid. Is it possible that Blane is also becoming a hybrid, but since the serum is specifically attuned to him, the effects are less grotesque and more intentional? And that’s just the one experiment we know about. Honestly, it feels like Blane is on the path toward supervillainy. Either intentionally trying to become a bee-man with plans of world conquest, or destined to accidentally become a monster of some kind. But that doesn’t happen in this story. Here, Walter Blane is just a nice beekeeper.

Three Honeycombs out of Five.

Although stories published by Atlas Comics are not generally considered canon in the Marvel Universe until they are referenced, there is nothing here that I can see that would prevent it. That means we can assume Blane or his research could exist in the same universe as Lucius Farnsworth.

Castle Crashers is a beat-em-up game in which Killer Beekeepers appear both as enemies and as a player character. The enemies appear in only a single level of the game and the player character has to be unlocked, both little touches that make the Killer Beekeepers feels rightfully special. But is that specialness justified?

Well, the enemy Killer Beekeepers are, as I say, rare. They will only attack when the player’s rampage brings them through the fields where the Killer Beekeepers’ bees live and work, and even then the only after the player has taken out a number of bees. In spite of the word “Killer” appearing as an adjective in their name, these Beekeepers just don’t show a sign of Beekeeper Rage. They legitimately just want to protect their bees. That’s admirable.

The unlockable player character Killer Beekeeper is a better study for the skills these Beekeepers can have as they level up. Upon starting the game the Killer Beekeeper is armed with a weapon called the Rat-Beating Bat, implying that they honed their skills protecting their hives from rats. As they level up their magical abilities, they gain the power to summon bees and use them as projectiles to fire at opponents (these bees are perfectly willing to die for the cause). And, indeed, with fully-levelled magic they can summon bees so quickly that enemies find it hard to resist being hurt. And while it isn’t directly related to beekeeping (though it is accompanied by smoke effects), they also have a magical jumping ability and can attack bosses while in the air, something apparently few other characters in the game can do.

It feels natural to compare the Killer Beekeepers with the Beekeeper from Fist Puncher. She was another who existed in the world of a beat-em-up game and could wander around fighting everyone who needs to be fought. A similar comparison would be the Beekeeper from Citizens of Earth, though she has numerous powers beyond just combat, such as healing skills, which give her the edge ratings-wise. The Killer Beekeepers show no talent as healers and have no talking bees or anything like that. They’re impressive fighters, but they have so much more to learn.

Four Honeycombs out of Five.

Hachibee is the Apiarist in Distress found in a Ghost of Tsushima expansion. This means he lives back in Samurai Times of Japan (I don’t feel it necessary to bother with a more detailed description of the era at this time.)

At this point I’ve covered enough of these that I could have told you how it goes before even looking: The hives/the Beekeeper are in danger, the game’s protagonist has to save them. It’s done by the numbers and doesn’t deviate.

I can’t rate Hachibee more than a Two for this. That’s the standard for this role. But Hachibee actually gets a little bit more detail than most of his fellows, which makes me wish I could go higher.

For example:

• His honey is used for healing.
• He writes poems for his bees.
• He suggests his bees may be useful to the protagonist in a fight.
• He has a good beekeeper name.
• He refuses to abandon his hives even when the enemies arrive.

It’s all good stuff, but just not enough to escape the surprisingly cliche role of videogame Apiarist in Distress.

Two Honeycombs out of Five.

Those who haven’t watched Rushmore in some time may not immediately think of Max Fischer as a Beekeeper, but he was, and it wasn’t a minor thing. Max was the president of the Rushmore Beekeepers club, and Rushmore is a school with a bee on its logo. One thing people definitely will remember is that Max Fischer is a bit of a jerk. That’s the point of the movie, so it gets more focus than the Beekeeper stuff. But they’re both there, and they’re not unrelated.

First, I suppose, I should speak on Max’s good qualities. He’s an enthusiastic young man with a take-charge attitude and natural tendencies toward leadership. He has a wide variety of interests, of which Beekeeping is only one. He’s a talented playwright and is also in clubs for debate and fencing and wrestling and more, many of these clubs he has founded himself. If that seems to lessen the import of his Beekeeping club, I don’t think it’s an issue. One of the pluses of Beekeeping is that it is something worthwhile that someone can do that doesn’t take all their focus, allowing for multi-tasking and multi-disciplinary learning. I know that the movie points out that Max’s interest in these clubs overshadows his performance in school, so you might say, “how can he be learning multi-disciplinarily if he isn’t even passing his classes,” but PDR doesn’t hold our school systems in any sacred regard, so if Max learns better in his clubs, I’m all for it. It’s also worth remembering that I consider skills in combat and adventure a plus for Beekeepers, and while Max may not be especially good in a fight, he has clubs where he learns skills that an adventurer would need. When he is seen in a conflict, we have to note that the bees are one of the first weapons he picks.

But Max is, by no means, perfect. He begins his tale as a self-absorbed little prick. He’s a liar and a manipulator. He routinely hurts others as he strides toward his own goals. Max is definitely a sufferer of Beekeeper Rage.

It occurred to me while making this review that the real problem with Beekeeper Rage is how often it is motivated by selfishness. By definition, Beekeepers are people who solve problems by building and protecting a community. That community is largely made up of bees, but not solely, nd when a Beekeeper gets too caught up in their own self-importance, it causes problems and hurts the community, bees and others. Note that when Max tries to turn his life around, he does so by mending the breaks he made in his community. That’s what Beekeepers are for.

3 Honeycombs out of Five. Max makes mistakes, but he’s also young, learns some lessons, and has a lot of potential for growth.