Apparently there was an anthology horror show called Monsters that ran back in the days that I would have been most happy to watch it, yet I only learned it existed recently. Truly there is more media out there than any one person can pay attention to. But hey, once I found out there was an episode with a Beekeeper, you know I had to get in on it.

Homer P. Jimmerman is a very introverted man. He alludes to a phobia that keeps him in his apartment, which could be a fear of people or the outside world or who-knows-what. In any case, it is not a fear of bees, so to maximize his ability to stay inside, he operates a bee farm from inside his New York high rise apartment, the honey from which allows him to be utterly self-sustaining. And he succeeds at that!

He’s relatively new at beekeeping it seems, but creates a nearly perfect little ecosystem in his apartment complete with flowers and plants. He clearly cares for the bees and treats them well. He calls them his children and even plays them music in spite of the fact that he loathes music in all its forms (weird). The resulting honey is so delicious, and an aphrodisiac on top of that, that his neighbour forces himself to work as a business partner and it is extremely lucrative.

Also, somehow, he made a queen bee that could take human form.

That’s right. The situation that Jimmerman finds himself in is reminiscent of that Benedict Fields was in: a queen bee that can shapeshift into the form of a sexy human lady. Unlike Fields and his Queen, though, Jimmerman’s Queen does not love him and he does love her. She takes the name Desiree and poses as his fiance, but things don’t go well for him given she winds killing Jimmerman as soon as she feels he has outlived his usefulness. Then she mates with that neighbour/business partner guy (killing him as well). Desiree had plans that went well beyond the walls of Jimmerman’s apartment, so while he would have been happy to simply mate with her and die (got halfway there, pal!) she is off to spread her workers to the rest of the world.

Jimmmerman’s actual beekeeping is on a sci-fi level of impressiveness, but one of the things you don’t want is for the hive to turn against you, so he manages only Three Honeycomb out of Five. Also, for the record, Jimmerman gives a little speech where he spouts that stuff about the hive worshipping their queen, and it always annoys me to see this bit of anthropomorphism placed on bees, who do NOT worship their queen and the queen does NOT rule the hive. We claim that because we called them “queens” but if we called them “baby bee maker bees” or something we would understand that they provide a valuable role, but our human concepts of royalty need not apply.