Bees Restrain Violence on College Campus 
I. L. NEILL Yakima, Wash. 

A SIMPLE, effective and inexpensive answer to the problem of restraining violence on the college campuses of the country has been discovered at the University of Washington. 

It accomplishes its goal without benefit of night sticks, mace or charges of police brutality. 

Someone pretty knowledgeable - probably an apiarist - thought it up. 

It is - BEES. Just plain garden - or orchard - bees. Toward the end of April, militant Students for a Democratic Society were doing their thing at the Seattle Institution. Their particular target was the job placement office in Loew Hall. They proclaimed loudly and at length that the office must be closed "to end recruiting on campus for companies exploiting the Third World." Their Third World is made up of minority groups. 

One of the firms toward which their wrath was directed is an old and well-known insurance company. It was accused of exploiting the natives in Africa. A spokesman for the company said it had no connections or interests of any kind in Africa. 

There was the usual confrontation between the militants and the anti-SDS group, with enough scuffling and shouting to attract a crowd of about 2,000 onlookers. 

In the midst of the melee, a pickup truck was driven up and parked in front of Loew Hall. The truck was piled with wooden boxes. 

A young man got out, his face concealed by a beekeeper's bonnet, his hands encased in leather gloves. He was quick and efficient. He picked up the wooden boxes - they were bee hives - and before the crowd realized what was happening, had reIeased thousands of bees. 

Pandemonium followed. Everyone was slapping, screaming or running. 

The young man drove off, pelted with anything that came to the hand of the rioters and the bystander, his ears assaulted by words that were once considered unprintable. 

The number of bee stings could not be calculated, but 22 persons reported for treatment of their stings, muttering about bee brutality. 

Who the bee man was, remains a mystery. His truck was registered in the name of a Yakima resident , according to the state bureau of licenses, but the man could not be located. No bee keeper of the name is registered in the state. 

In many quarters it was felt that the B-man, as he is being called, should get an A for effort. 

NEILL, I. (1969). BEES RESTRAIN VIOLENCE ON COLLEGE CAMPUS. GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE, 97(6), 368.

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