“Molecular Tornado Boat”. This is how American artist, healer and Bee Queen Sara Mapelli describes her latest bee dance. Mapelli is featured in the current issue of The Third Eye magazine in a special interview. She fuses together performance, ritual, healing and meditation in a beautifully surreal bee dance, manifesting union between man and nature. Mapelli incarnates something of a modern day Melissa, the Ancient Greek Bee Goddess, dancing away in a performance to both heal and raise awareness about the importance of the bee on our planet. Following her latest bee dance with 12,000 bees in Oregon this August and with the imminent release of her new bee video ahead, The Third Eye caught up with Sara Mapelli to talk about hives, dancing on tables of pollinated food and her vision to take the bee dance worldwide.

Photography by Holly Wilmeth and Interview by Sophie Pinchetti

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THE THIRD EYE: Where did this latest dance take place?

SARA MAPELLI: This dance took place in a garden outside of Corvallis, Oregon.

How was it?

SARA MAPELLI: It was fabulous. I invited friends to improv with me. That was really fun and it made for an interesting “story” to edit into the next video. The video will be launched at the end of August 2014.

Describe your bee dance in 3 words.

SARA MAPELLI: Molecular Tornado Boat.

How long did you dance for? 

SARA MAPELLI: 2 hours.

Whose hive was it? Is every hive a different experience?

SARA MAPELLI: This hive belongs to a professor friend of mine. So far all the hives are similar in the experience. It’s more the wind as a factor that I need to work with. If they cannot find the pheromone [Sara wears a pheromone with the scent of 100 queen bees] sent via the wind, they get confused. It’s different from moment to moment depending on the outside world. The sun, the heat, the shade, all play a part in the experience.

How do you see the bee dance evolving? In our interview in The Third Eye magazine, you had mentioned you were integrating this into healing work with people.

SARA MAPELLI: At the moment I would like to take it in 3 directions. I have been doing energy work for over 25 years and dancing with bees is so similar to the waves and magnetism I feel while working with my clients. I work on people directly in my office and I do long distance sessions all over the world. I am thinking of doing a bee dance where I have 20 people in a circle around me and we do a healing session. There would be an outer circle of watchers and supporters to the healing process.
I would like to integrate beekeepers, chefs, and myself to create large fancy feasts across the world. I want to dance on tables with dishes that are made solely from pollinated foods and feed and serve people while covered in bees. I see this as a huge project, but what a great way to educate people on the importance of the bee and all the history that each culture brings along with the bee, such as certain foods and certain medicines. The end product could be an amazing cookbook and video series. I would like to also do bee dances in a contemporary art gallery setting.

Can you give me an update on latest progressions on the Golden Bee Retreat project you have been building in Guanajuato in Mexico?

SARA MAPELLI: Currently we are renting the second and third floor (“Panoromantica”) of the Golden Bee Retreat on Airbnb and flip key.

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BEE QUEEN NEWS: Visit www.saramapellibeequeen.com and stay tuned for the release of Sara’s new BEE DANCE film! And to read The Third Eye’s exclusive interview with Sara Mapelli in the current issue of the print magazine, click here.

Update from January 2016, Check out Sara Mapelli in this new video from National Geographic:

“I want to dance on tables with dishes that are made solely from pollinated foods and feed and serve people while covered in bees.”