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"  Burt Shavitz, the septuagenarian cofounder of determinedly eco-friendly beauty brand Burt&amp;#039;s Bees, has just eaten a bee. Wings and antennae akimbo, it was the size and blackish shade of a large prune, and it had been bottled with several others in a jar of honey at a bee farm Shavitz just visited\u2014along with a film crew and lucky, terrified me\u2014in the jungly, southernmost region of Taiwan. There, swarms of thousands of bees\u2014dizzyingly dense, deafeningly loud\u2014left most of us screaming and blindly swatting despite head-to-toe protective beekeeper garb, while Shavitz, in nothing but his trademark short-sleeve khaki shirt and matching pants (with Teva sandals and socks), held the buzzing bugs in his bare hands and let them crawl across his face and through his wild white beard. He proved equally unflappable when presented with the edible, honey-soaked insect (a local delicacy), placing it blithely on his tongue and slowly, deliberately crunching it. When I ask him later what it was like to eat a bee, he rolls his eyes as though confronted with a slightly dim-witted child. &amp;quot;That wasn&amp;#039;t a bee I ate,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;It was a hornet. But the wings get stuck in your teeth just the same.&amp;quot; Shavitz is a huge celebrity in Taiwan, which is currently Burt&amp;#039;s Bees&amp;#039; most rapidly growing market. Fans call him Papa Burt and practically faint with joy upon meeting him. This whistle-stop promotional tour is intended to build on that momentum, while also providing fodder for a documentary being made about Shavitz&amp;#039;s life by filmmaker Jody Shapiro, who codirected Isabella Rossellini&amp;#039;s crazy-brilliant Green Porno series (short films about animal sex, acted out by Rossellini\u2014look them up, you won&amp;#039;t be sorry). Shapiro is fascinated with not only Shavitz&amp;#039;s past\u2014before becoming an off-the-grid beekeeper in the 1970s, he was a successful photographer for Life who snapped the likes of Malcolm X and JFK\u2014but also the way that his public appearances as the face of Burt&amp;#039;s Bees contrast with his reclusive existence in remote Maine, where he still resides in a small cabin without heat or hot water. Shavitz was a trailblazer, not only in his pre-artisanal-Brooklyn-era decision to ditch his media job and live off the land, but also in his instinctual understanding of the value of bees, both for his own and the greater good. Ever since he wrestled a wild colony out of a tree stump to start his first hive, Shavitz has been a sort of custodian and de facto publicist for the species: Burt&amp;#039;s Bees, which Shavitz and his then business partner Roxanne Quimby started in 1984 with a handmade beeswax lip balm that they sold at craft fairs, stays uncompromisingly true to its ethos of environmental sustainability. The company has worked tirelessly to call attention to Colony Collapse Disorder\u2014the mysterious and drastic ongoing decline in honeybee populations first noted in 2006\u2014creating the Honeybee Health Improvement Project to fund research grants, taking a stand against pesticide use, and giving every employee a stipend to take beekeeping classes. In Burt Talks to the Bees, a series of educational spots on the brand&amp;#039;s website, Rossellini plays both Burt and the insects, delivering thickly accented instructions on what we can all do to help: support organic farms, plant wildflowers, and buy local honey. Click here to see April Long&amp;#039;s favorite bee products! Suddenly the bee list is the place to be, and not a moment too soon. Membership in Los Angeles&amp;#039; Backwards Beekeepers club, a group of organic-beekeeping hobbyists, shot up from six in 2008 to more than 400 in 2010, and urban beekeeping has taken off in New York City since its legalization two years ago, to such an extent that some experts are worried that the concrete jungle won&amp;#039;t have enough flora to feed the burgeoning bees (maybe we&amp;#039;ll have to plant more flowers?). In 2011, 18 Fairmont Hotels from Boston to Newport Beach, California, added apiaries, from which they derive homegrown honey for desserts, cocktails, and spa treatments. There&amp;#039;s a hive atop Manhattan&amp;#039;s hipster-beloved Ace Hotel, and at the Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue some 70,000 European honeybees luxuriate in penthouse-level dwellings boasting such names as Empire Hive of Mind and Presidential Sweet. The Paris Opera house has hives, as does 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: Obama&amp;#039;s chefs have been brewing a White House Honey Ale since 2011 at the president&amp;#039;s request. Those who like their honey truly haute can try to score a jar of Louis Vuitton&amp;#039;s La Belle Jardini\u00E8re, harvested on the rooftop of the label&amp;#039;s Champs-\u00C9lys\u00E9es headquarters (it&amp;#039;s distributed only to friends and family of the house, so good luck). Meanwhile, pretty much everything produced by the busy pollinators is proving to have some kind of salubrious property: Royal jelly, the rarefied goo bees feed their queen, has been shown to support cell regeneration and build collagen as well as lower cholesterol when taken internally; and propolis, the sticky, antimicrobial substance bees make from botanical resins and use to seal the hive, was found to arrest the growth of prostate cancer cells and tumors in mice in a 2012 study conducted at the University of Chicago. (Used in mouthwash, propolis also reduces inflammation of gums and prevents the formation of plaque in the mouth.) Honey has been used on wounds for centuries, but scientists have recently confirmed that a variety produced from the nectar of manuka trees in New Zealand has especially superior healing powers: A study published in Microbiology in January 2012 found that it could even destroy antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. People also take local honey to ward off seasonal allergies\u2014in some areas of New York City, you can buy honey from bees that live in your own neighborhood, which is believed to fortify you against the specific allergens you&amp;#039;re encountering. Dermatologist Debra Jaliman, MD, author of Skin Rules (St. Martin&amp;#039;s Press), uses manuka honey in her New York practice to treat conditions ranging from infections to surgical wounds to eczema. &amp;quot;We have patients for whom we fly in special gauze impregnated with medical-grade honey from New Zealand, because nothing else works to heal their skin,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;One woman had a skin infection from head to toe and was allergic to everything we tried. We used honey, and now her skin is perfectly clear.&amp;quot; The substance&amp;#039;s extraordinary soothing and humectant properties, she says, are what gives honey so much traction as an ingredient in beauty products. &amp;quot;Honey is very beneficial for the skin. It&amp;#039;s a powerful antioxidant, it&amp;#039;s anti-inflammatory, it&amp;#039;s incredibly healing, it&amp;#039;s moisturizing. It&amp;#039;s one of those old-fashioned remedies that actually works really well.&amp;quot; Beauty companies are keeping pace with formulations backed by emerging science: Guerlain&amp;#039;s Abeille Royale range contains a patented royal-jelly-and-honey brew they claim can repair wrinkle-causing microtears in skin by revving up firming fibroblasts; Greek brand Apivita&amp;#039;s anti-aging Queen Bee line features fatty-acid-rich royal jelly encapsulated in deep-tissue-targeting liposomes; and Burt&amp;#039;s Bees&amp;#039; Radiance line, which boosts skin&amp;#039;s brightness with a host of B vitamins, niacin, and folic acid, also contains royal jelly. But the ingredient generating the most buzz comes from the insect&amp;#039;s sting: Ever since it was revealed that Kate Middleton received a bee-venom-laced facial prior to the royal wedding, the Brits have been clamoring for the stuff. Aesthetician Deborah Mitchell, who ministers to the duchess&amp;#039;s complexion (her client list also reportedly includes Camilla Parker Bowles, Kylie Minogue, Victoria Beckham, and Gwyneth Paltrow), alleges that the venom stimulates the production of collagen and elastin while relaxing muscles to provide a Botox-like effect when applied topically. It sounds like the sort of thing that should be filed alongside fish pedicures and bird-poop facials (yes, they exist), but there&amp;#039;s actually some evidence that it might work. &amp;quot;Bee venom contains more than 18 biologically active compounds,&amp;quot; says New York dermatologist Francesca Fusco, MD, &amp;quot;including the peptide melittin, which is anti-inflammatory and antiviral and could benefit disorders such as acne, and amino butyric acid, which is a component of many wrinkle creams. It supposedly hinders rapid nerve activity, acting like a kind of topical neurotoxin to smooth muscle.&amp;quot; However, she says, while studies have shown bee venom to be an effective treatment for arthritis (while in Taiwan, Shavitz encourages bees to sting his knee for precisely this reason), &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m unable to find substantial, peer-reviewed studies in medical journals demonstrating collagen stimulation and wrinkle reduction.&amp;quot; Manuka Doctor, an anti-aging and anti-acne product line that has been a tremendous success in the UK and will be available stateside this spring, has patented a purified bee venom (or PBV), which is combined with manuka honey for double-whammy oomph. &amp;quot;The venom gets in and starts to work on collagen production and the renewal of the cell, while the manuka honey works very quickly to reduce inflammation and get rid of redness and soreness,&amp;quot; says brand vice president Greig Duncan, who adds that while those seriously allergic to bee stings should avoid the products, the purification process results in a very low risk of irritation. Manuka Doctor consultant Sang Mi Han, PhD, a researcher at South Korea&amp;#039;s National Academy of Agricultural Science, has also published studies demonstrating that topical bee venom can boost the number of epidermal keratinocyte cells, which provide protection against water loss and sun damage. (No bees are harmed in the harvesting of the venom: A plate of glass with a mild electric current is introduced near the hive\u2014the bees sting it, but their stingers remain intact.) Back in Taipei, a huge yellow marquee and stage are set up outside popular department store Sogo as part of Burt&amp;#039;s Day, a celebration that starts with a picnic (honey water on tap!) and ends with an in-store autograph-signing session during which Shavitz is practically mobbed by &amp;quot;bee girls&amp;quot; wearing wings and I Heart Burt &amp;amp;amp; the Bees T-shirts, all of whom seem to be sporting bright blue contact lenses and breeze-generating lash extensions. A TV presenter known as Brother Watermelon lip-synchs a popular Taiwanese pop song while kindergartners dressed up in adorable bee costumes stream onstage and dance. The show&amp;#039;s special guest star, 19-year-old model Hannah Quinlivan (who I&amp;#039;m told is famous for dating Taipei-born Green Hornet actor Jay Chou and is often referred to as &amp;quot;the Kim Kardashian of Taiwan&amp;quot;), appears to rapturous applause, wearing a sparkly tiara and a yellow minidress that shows off a Band-Aid on her knee. She asks Shavitz if he has a message for his fans, and he promptly seizes the microphone and utters a single sentence, repeated three times, each in a lower octave. &amp;quot;Save the beeeeeees\u2026.&amp;quot; If we&amp;#039;re lucky, that&amp;#039;s exactly what all this bee beauty business will do. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/beauty/makeup-skin-care/tips/a14351/burt-shavitz-interview/>