Keeping You Covid-19 Safe During a Killer Bees Honey Tour
NC State Gov. Roy Cooper announced he is extending his statewide stay-at-home order until May 8th. He will then reassess easing restrictions contingent on data trends. We historically began our tours the first weekend in May. Due to the pandemic, we have extended our first tour date to Friday, May 15. If Gov. Cooper extends the lockdown past the Ides of May, we will obviously postpone, or fully refund a guest’s deposit according to their wishes.
Attempting to follow all CDC protocols and guidelines, Killer Bees Honey shall:
- Limit our tours to eight (8) persons instead of our usual 12 - 14 people. We can safely accommodate eight people on our outside porch and still maintain social distancing without someone going over the second-story railing. No bueno. Besides not reading well on a Trip Advisor review, it’s a long drive to the local ER.
- All presentations including our honey tastings and food pairings will be conducted outdoors with social distancing protocols in place.
- Hand sanitizer will always be within....hands reach. Contrary to what someone suggested, it is not to be ingested or injected into your body.(sweet baby Jesus, wtf?)
- During the hive inspections, we are splitting into two groups of four. Every participant shall be required to wear a provided face mask underneath their veil. We will make every attempt to adhere to social distancing, but that may be tough when several people are simultaneously looking for a queen bee who is doing her best to hide among her thousands of daughters.
- Even though the entire tour will be conducted outside, one may want to use the facilities. We are operating a hospital grade electrostatic air cleaner in our home which refreshes the air to the entire house every 15 minutes. We installed it mainly to scrub the air of dander from The Demons from HELL (cats), but recently discovered it also kills viruses (win!). To my fellow male-gendered peeps - you’ve got 512,000 acres of forest surrounding the house. I use it all the time. Just be mindful where you step. The resident copperheads are brilliantly camouflaged to the forest floor and anti venom shots are $10K a pop.
- All common surfaces in the house will be cleaned at the end of every tour. When I say “cleaned,” I mean thoroughly disinfected. You haven’t seen OCD until you’ve seen me off my meds.
- Lastly, we cannot allow anyone to pour their own souvenir bottle of honey in the honey house. This is considered self-service and strictly verboten by the CDC.
If you are feeling unwell for any reason, the courteous thing to do is not participate. We appreciate and completely understand anyone who cancels or postpones a tour. We also understand anyone’s hesitation to do something on our tour that makes them feel unsafe for themselves or a loved one. The Beekeeper's wife, Denise, our intern Madison, and I will do our very best to educate you about bees, their importance to the forest ecosystem and hopefully allow you a momentary escape from this foreboding cloud called Covid-19. We only ask for your patience as we adjust to the "new normal." If you want to know what if feels like to be in the tour/hospitality business during a pandemic, think of the band on the deck of the Titanic that continued to play while it sank. We're the band.
We are a nation of hope and belonging. Soon our country will reopen. Hopefully, our sense of community will not have diminished. When you come out from your Tiger King binge, try to remember the people who never gave up on us - the nurses and doctors, Law enforcement, Firefighters, and EMS, grocery store clerks, and truckers. They tirelessly did their job in the face of overwhelming odds.
— The Beekeeper
