it took 28 years before Roberto could speak with the api. Not because the language of the insects is the most sweet of the world is so complex. Indeed, it is seemingly very simple: there are no grammar and syntax, there are no words and even syllables, and diphthongs. But if, as Roberto Ballini, born in 1944, is a former professional cyclist (he won a stage of the Giro d’italia and finished fourth place at Milan-Sanremo), you are able to find the right intonations and vibrations of the vocal cords, that, behold, friends, the bees respond.
“That day I realized that with the entry stop, freeze, and then give me a signal, a response, interact with me,” says the former cyclist today, the beekeeper. And even today, 20 may, on the day of the Third World Day of the Bees, Roberto has talked with her friends kept in twenty hives in the Garden of the Simple Hermitage of Santa Caterina, Rio nell’elba, one of the municipalities of the tuscan island.
The bees recognize two different sound frequencies, and Ballini, with some urletti sibilants, has learned to give their small orders, and especially to never bite you. His discovery has also interested scientists and has become the protagonist of a study by the university of Pisa.
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But beyond the curiosity, ethological, what is surprising to soften the soul, is the show of the nature of these places. To reach the hives walking on a path of cypress trees, where the scents (from salt of the sea and fragrances of flowers are intoxicating and the colors wonderful. And, therefore, the experience of the man who speaks with the bees also and especially a route between the sublime treasures of the Island of Elba.
Roberto Ballini is not just a producer of honey, but is a lord in symbiosis with the bees. The defends itself from an environment distorted by the men, the cuddle, and became an expert in the reproductions of the “queens”. For them to be born, feeds the larvae with royal jelly and then, thanks to natural techniques, grow and “name” sovereign of the hive. It’s a small miracle that even this, which is not surprising in the man who was able to talk with the api.
