The man who “whispers” to bees lives on the Island of Elba

On the Island of Elba they know him as the man who “whispers” to bees; His name is Roberto Ballini, 75, a former professional cyclist (he won a stage of the Giro d’Italia) and today the keeper of the simple garden of the Hermitage of Santa Caterina. In reality his is not exactly a whisper, but a high pitched sound which, emitted at the frequency of 290 Hz, tells the bees to stop. However, the relationship between Ballini and his bees goes beyond sound communication, as in truth happens for any beekeeper who, let us remember, is first of all a guardian of biodiversity.

The story of Ballini and his bees is one that for some years has in some way expanded the tourist offer of the Island of Elba which, among other things, bears three bees in its flag commissioned by Napoleon. A World Day is dedicated to these extraordinary pollinating insects, to which the human race owes its survival, established in 2017 by an agreement between 115 member states of the United Nations.

The date of May 20 was not chosen by chance, but because it is the birthday of Anton Jansa, a pioneer of modern beekeeping in Slovenia, since the 18th century. Returning to Elba, the man who whispers to bees arrives in the Garden of the simple of the Hermitage of Santa Caterina in 2013, but his passion for bees begins much earlier, we would say forty years back.

«I was a great consumer of honey – he says -, which I used as an energy source during competitions. One day in September, while I was mushrooming in the Livorno hills, I saw a black ball on a thorny broom. It was a swarm. I talked about it with some people who told me about the phenomenon of swarming and the danger of not surviving that free swarms like the one I had found run, due to the low winter temperatures, the absence of shelter and even hunger or parasites ” .

Ballini thus takes it into his head to return to save them and from there begins his new adventure in the world of these insects. Bees, among other things, are a protected species, so much so that law 313/2004 regulates beekeeping and prohibits pest control interventions against bees and their nests. Among Roberto’s various winter readings there are also books and studies on the behavior of bees. The meeting, in 2006, with a retired German physicist allowed Ballini to confirm what he had experienced a few years earlier, namely that these insects react to sound waves and that “with frequencies between 260 and 400 hz, calm down. ” At 290 hz, however, they just stop, as Ballini demonstrates in some videos. The discovery of him, born from daily practice, was the subject of study by the University of Pisa.

Highly sensitive receptors of pollution, bees are now a threatened species both from an environmental point of view (due to climate change and the deterioration of the general health of the planet), and from some particularly aggressive parasites, such as varroa, the parasitic mite arrived from China in the 90s and responsible for viroses and diseases that weaken bee families and threaten their survival during the winter.

To help them fight the parasite, Ballini administers herbal discoveries by exploiting the ancient knowledge of medicinal plants, which he cultivates himself in the Orto dei Semplici of the Hermitage. In this light, the Orto dei Semplici becomes an even more precious place, a perfect compendium of the island’s biodiversity, next to the hermitage and the Church of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria, it is an almost mystical place of great essentiality. But also a real biodiversity reservoir with various native plants of the island, including six rare varieties of fruits originating from Elba, such as the ‘Angelica dell’Elba’ Pear or the ‘Sanguigno Settembrino dell’Elba’ Peach. .