A Brazilian pop star has stunned her fans by posting a video of her whole family being surrounded by thousands of stingless bees.
Ivete Sangalo – one of the country’s most popular singers – posted the clip on Instagram by commenting “We love the bees!”
The video shows the singer, her husband Daniel Cady, 37, and their four-year-old twin daughters Helena and Marina sitting right next to a busy colony.
The short clip was taken at the Meliponario Polen Dourado, a breeding centre for melipona, a genus of stingless bees, in Mata de Sao Joao in the State of Bahia.
Sangalo revealed earlier this year that she had taken up beekeeping during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a conversation on her television hit series ‘Onda Boa com Ivete’ – in which she teams up with other artists to make music and exchange experiences – the Latin Grammy Award laureate said: “I think we’ve now got around 8,000 bees. I tell Daniel what to do all the time while he just tells me that I’m his queen bee.”
Sangalo – who has released eight studio albums and three live records since 1999 – underlined: “Bees help to produce 70 per cent of our food.”
The singer-songwriter has nearly 35 million followers on Instagram. Her melipona swarm video posting quickly garnered more than 390,000 likes.
One user commented “What a cute infestation!” while numerous others posted heart-shaped emojis.
Melipona are stingless pollinators which prefer habitats with warm conditions. They are common in several areas of Central and South America.
