YouTubers Travis Oates and Leif Gantvoort of Above Board TV may have uncovered the least comfortable way to play board games – covered in tens of thousands of live bees. With assistance from renowned bee scientist Norman Gary, the duo were filmed playing a full game of bee-themed board game Apiary while each draped in a living coat of bees.
“The insurance company consider this more extreme than anything else we’ve done”, Oates says at the start of the video. Their ‘Extreme Board Gaming’ videos have included playing board games while swimming with sharks, and sky-diving. He adds that there would be less insurance paperwork if they were lit on fire – we assume that fire-fighting sim ‘Flash Point’ would be the best board game to pair with an inferno.
The pair record the stunt at Bee Happy Apiaries in Winters, California. Dr. Gary takes the lead on the bee wrangling. Oates describes Dr. Gary as the “pre-eminent bee expert in the United States, if not the world”. As well as an academic career, he’s worked with the film and television industry for “about 40 years” assisting with bee stunts, such as in the Candyman films. He estimates he’s been stung about 20,000 times.
Oates and Gantvoort are trying to play Apiary, a middle-weight strategy board game, while coated in bees. Apiary is a worker (bee) placement game with some neat twists. As well as recalling your workers, they will be sent back to you if your opponent takes the action space they’re on. Each time your workers are recalled to your hive they level up, making the next action they take more powerful. High level bees are a source of victory points, but leave your workforce, so there’s pros and cons to this tussle over spots.
While the bees in Apiary are cheery looking sentient space bees who get along just fine, the key to making real bees hive up on a person is a special pheromone. Dr. Gary applies some liberally to both presenters’ clothes, before starting the process of transferring 120,000 bees onto them in dribs, drabs, and eventually great big scoops.
We’ll spoil the ending – Oates wins the game, and neither of them is stung to death by bees. It’s certainly a memorable two player matchup, but we don’t recommend this as a way to spice up your next couples board game night.
If you’re a big fan of both board games and the natural world, check out our Ark Nova review or Mycelium review – and of course our Wingspan review, which was Stonemaier Games’ big hit before Apiary.
Source: Wargamer
