A bee 'rescuer' in the Peruvian capital plies his trade with love, for free

LIMA, Peru (AP) – Alfredo Santiago has a unique job in Peru's capital city of Lima: he is a bee rescuer.

The 35-year-old man started as a beekeeper but added stinging insect rescue to his activities. He keeps checking his cell phone for messages from people who want help removing nests from windows, playgrounds and even cemeteries.

“I do it out of love, to protect these animals that are very important to nature,” he said.

When he has received enough requests, Santiago puts on his white, one-piece beekeeper's suit, takes a smoker and a wooden box and hits the streets of Lima, a city of 10 million people.

Sometimes Santiago comes to the area and people have already killed the bees. But when he manages to free them, he takes them back to his home on the outskirts of Lima, where he lives as a beekeeper and sells honey.

Apparently he is the only one in town who does this work for free. “Volunteer work. Some plant trees, others collect abandoned dogs or cats,” said Santiago, whose parents are beekeepers.

“I am the driver, the one carrying the box, the one driving, the one (protecting himself) with the helmet, the one taking the picture and uploading it to the networks,” he said looking at the blue car. that he drives around the house.

Recently, Santiago had to walk more than 80 kilometers from one side of Lima to the other to find a nest in the garden of a house. He also went to the cemetery after the man who was going to bury his mother was stung by some bees, they found that the insects found a place on the wooden box.

Santiago says he gets about 100 requests a year to remove bees, and he estimates he has rescued about 4 million bees since he started his non-paying job in 2020. People had started reading about him on social media.

The life of bees in Lima is not easy because the densely populated city does not have many parks or green spaces.

In the main yard of his house, Santiago has more than a dozen green wooden boxes where more than 400,000 bees live and “recover” after being rescued. There is honey on two plates, while some drops of water from the tap fall on a piece of wood. Everything is for the bees. After a few months, sometimes six, he takes them to the Andean forests of Peru, more than 225 kilometers (140 miles) from Lima, where his parents live and take care of bees.

Family story: Santiago said he's already thinking about buying a beekeeper suit for his three-year-old daughter.