The Bee Paradise

I just love cheesy tourist attractions, over the years I must have seen and photographed hundreds of them all over Japan.

This particular place is called Bee Paradise and is located near Nagano and shows more than 600 different exhibits…all made out of bee hives.

There is no other place like this on earth and even the Guiness Book of Records acknowledged the uniqueness of a 4 meter tall Mt.Fuji made out of 160 bee hives.

This particular exhibit was also submitted to the Guiness Book of Records, it’s 6.5 meter long, made from 20 individual bee hives.

Of course there is more, at the entrance you get greeted by this Manekineko with 2 bee hives on its head…

…and of course many more strange constructions.

How about a lucky god?

Or some wacky clock with an bee hive head?

Another Manekineko. In the small picture you can see how these constructions are made…the cat was hung upside down and the bees started to construct their hive hanging from its head.

The Bee Paradise has several floors with rooms full of bee hives.

This one for example is huge!

Many bee hives hanging from a tree.

A bee hive inside a daruma.

And an entire shinkansen train made out of bee hives…click the picture to see it bigger!

Since we are in Japan here, there is also a Mt. Fuji clone made out of bee hives. Its 3.776 meter high, 4.8 meter wide and was acknowledged as the biggest bee hive in the world.

This bee hive resembles a gourd!

Another one attached to the snoot of an animal…

…and another on top of a lion…

…followed by a bigger than live swan.

One of the main attractions is probably this space shuttle entirely made by bees.

It took years and years to grow this collection to 600 exhibits in all shapes and forms.

Rather obvious, the Bee Paradise also sells great honey, which I happily bought after my visit.