The code “SCP-1256-1” is used by the SCP Foundation to refer to anybody who comes under the influence of a certain strange pamphlet with mind-altering effects, but I am specifically reviewing the family on whose property the mysterious pamphlet was first discovered. We don’t know much about them, but of course that will not stop me. I’ve reviewed more obscure beekeepers than this.

This family of five ran a bee-farm in New South Wales, though I can’t say for sure how successful it was. What we do know is that at some point they came into the possession of a pamphlet titled “Bees – Smarter Than You Think” and at least one member of the family (the eldest daughter) read it pamphlet and fell under its influence.

For whatever reason, this pamphlet makes the reader obsessed with helping bees. Unfortunately this does not make for better beekeepers, because it does it wrong. The afflicted person loses any sense of what actually helps the hive and can actually hurt the hive, to the point that the bees will be fighting against the person who is obsessively trying to help them. In the case of this family, it ended with the daughter murdering the rest of her family. In the long run, this did not help the farm.

This family is (or I should say, was) a beekeeping group in proximity to the supernatural. Often that can be good for these reviews. It did not work out so well in this case, though. They don’t rate so highly.

2 Honeycombs out of Five.

It’s worth noting that the SCP Foundation has devoted a team to containing the pamphlet when it turns up, called Mobile Task Force Zeta-4 but nicknamed the ‘Beekeepers’. But they aren’t actually beekeepers. They’re pamphlet killers whose target pamphlet happens to be about bees.

We haven’t, to date, had the best of luck with Beekeepers who live in fantasy videogame realms. It’s a shame, because some of our highest-ranking Beekeepers come from fantasy novels. But in games, the Beekeepers are always there to just beg for the help of the players. Apiarists in Distress, as I have said before. So I didn’t expect much of Barry, a Beekeeper found in the world of World of Warcraft. But there are always surprises in reviewing Fictional Beekeeper.

To be sure, Barry is another NPC who will set the player off on quests and stuff, but it isn’t because he needs help. All indications are that Barry’s own beekeeping operations are doing just fine without any help from the player. Instead, Barry gets the player to help out with another colony of bees altogether. It turns out that there’s a new hive in the valley, giant bees have arrived from places unknown, and Barry tells the player about it. When the player finds the hive and the bees are ready to defend themselves, Barry steps in and brokers peace between the player and the bees of the Honeyback Hive. You see, Barry can speak the language of the bees fluently and he’s not about to let the new bees (or the player) waste their lives in combat. After that he seems to operate as a freelance translator between the bees and the players, in spite of the fact that the Honeyback Hive isn’t even his own hive. He’s doing extra beekeeping on the side of his own.

Barry seems like a nice guy. Very genial and none of the telltale signs of Beekeeper Rage. His bees are extremely large, if not the size of the newcomers. And he loves his bees and they love him back/ And he loves the Honeyback bees as well, enjoying petting their fuzzy thoraxes. As for supernatural or combat prowess, Barry seems about standard for a denizen of Azeroth, a place where magic and combat are ubiquitous. It’s a world where a Beekeeper needs to be extra careful because you never know when a honey-crazed mauler is going to turn up. We can only infer that if Barry is successful in this world, he’s got the skill to back it up.

4 Honeycombs out of Five. He’s standout in videogame NPC Beekeepers.

Louis “Lee” Sanchez is a supervillain who appears as an opponent in the roleplaying game Villains and Vigilantes. Before he was a beekeeping supervillain he was a boxer and a movie star and was quite successful. Unfortunately, during that period he got caught up in a world of illegal drugs and firearms. This ended poorly for Lee, causing his career to come to a halt, leaving him poor. Eventually he got a job as a security guard at a scientific company, only to steal their experimental “bio-electric suit” which had been designed to control killer bees. He had originally intended to ransom the suit back to the company, but after wearing it he took a liking to the powers it granted and opted to keep it and begin a career as a supervillain called The Beekeeper!

Apart from his own prowess as an athlete and a fighter, Lee’s suit allows him to control his bees, to fly, to shoot “stingers”, and it enhances his strength. It is also noted that he has an ability to detect the weaknesses of his opponents, but it’s not made clear if that’s a result of his experience as a pugilist or a function of the suit. He’s got a weakness to insecticide though. It is noted that he’s smart enough to use his bees to scout out locations before he gets into problems, which is smart, but otherwise he only uses his bees when they’re necessary, otherwise preferring to do his work on his own.

Lee definitely has some typical Beekeeper Rage on display. It’s said that he has never really recovered from his fall from grace and will be enraged by people who mock him or imply that he’s a loser. That said, it is also noted that he has become very protective of his bees, whom he feared at first but has since come to see as loyal friends, unlike those who abandoned him when his life went bad. The sourcebook specifically notes that “if many of them are harmed he becomes enraged enough to kill.” Though more justified, it’s still Beekeeper Rage, but it does also show that in spite of the fact that he began his career as a “controller” of bees, he has come to see them as partners in his life. That wins some points with me.

3 Honeycombs out of Five. But keep in mind that this is a character in a tabletop roleplaying game. If the players and game master did their things right, they could spin adventures in which Lee turns out to be a cosmic-level beekeeper and it’d be as valid a take on the character as any other. He could become a hero. The possibilities are endless.

We’ve seen Beekeepers who use vehicles for their beekeeping before (Doc Beebles’s truck comes to mind.) But today’s Beekeeper is a character from the game series Vigilante 8, so he spends most of his time fighting in his truck. He is called Beezwax and he’s definitely given into his Beekeeper Rage.

He had been a farmer until his farm was polluted with radioactive waste from a nearby government testing facility. After that, “Beezwax packed up and hit the road in a rage of madness” and sought revenge on those who had wronged him. As is so typical when a Beekeeper goes bad, the justification is sound, but the response is too much and they go evil. In his mentally unstable state, Beezwax encounters the leader of Vigilante 8’s villains, a man called Sid Burn, and starts thinking he is a prophet. Beezwax sides with Burn and his villainous team and we lose another Beekeeper to the bad side.

It seems like Beezwax’s quest for revenge becomes a little unfocused when he joins the villains. He continues finding things that piss him off, such as when he sees ski resorts taking over his hometown, but I doubt Syd Burn is as concerned with nuclear waste dumping as Beezwax ought to be. Perhaps it is the justice of the bees then that, in one of the endings in which Beezwax wins the game, his acquisition of some nuclear warheads goes awry when one of his bees sets off the bomb, presumably killing Beezwax.

Beezwax has a pretty sweet thing going here. Just having a mobile apiary is impressive, but this truck is equipped with all manner of other gadgetry that can help in a fight. Guns and rocket launchers, for example. It’s considered one of the game’s more heavily armoured, but slower vehicles. A tank, I believe is the term for this sort of setup. But it isn’t just the truck! The bees themselves have been mutated into a “Gamma Swarm” by the radiation. They seem larger than average and can be sent out of attack Beeswax’s enemies.

If only it had all been in the hands of a more well-adjusted Beekeeper. If someone had the same origin, the same setup, the same powers, but hadn’t given into a destructive spiral of anger, that would have been one awesome Beekeeper.

3 Honeycombs out of Five.

The Bee Man of Alcatraz is a beekeeper and a criminal introduced in an episode of Scooby Doo and Guess Who. Unfortunately, he is only seen at the beginning of an episode, at the end of some off-screen adventure that is being wrapped up in media res. He is unmasked as Bob the Beekeeper.

You might think that this minor appearance would mean I have very little to work with for this review. Not so! We’re talking about a Scooby Doo villain here. I am an expert reviewer of Beekeepers and I have watched an awful lot of Scooby Doo. My knowledge of the abilities of the former and the beloved formulaic nature of the latter mean that I am more than qualified to piece together this tale.

Bob was definitely a beekeeper who worked on or near Alcatraz Island, and he probably had knowledge that there was some manner of secret treasure left behind in the museum that was once the infamous prison there. Perhaps some relative was once a prisoner there and buried it, who can say, but he was definitely looking for something in those walls. He couldn’t very well hunt for treasure with tourists and employees milling about all day, so he did what any criminal would do: he concocted tales of a monster to frighten people away, giving him time to look for his prize. He went with a bee-theme for the monster because that’s what he knows, and it allowed him to use things like wax and bees as part of his ruse. I expect his costume actually allowed him to fly as well.

I think it is a safe bet that when Mystery Inc. showed up Shaggy and Scooby were frightened. There was probably some wax left behind as a clue. It’s quite likely he chased the Mystery Machine around for about the length of a pop song. I figure at some point he tried to sting something and the stinger got caught. And in the end, he was captured in some clever trap.

To review, he’s a beekeeper successful enough as such to be called “Bob the Beekeeper” which means he’s probably at least kind of good at that job. It’s unfortunate he turned to crime, but the fact he has no apparent henchmen means he’s got skills. Those skills aren’t enough to get one over on Scoob and the Gang, but there’s no shame in losing to such an esteemed team of crimefighters.

3 Honeycombs out of Five. It’s worth noting that Bob did not have a speaking role in the episode, so the makers of Scooby Doo definitely need to bring him back, voiced by me.