Couple offers customers the 'relaxing' sound and smell of buzzing bees

Beehive therapy getting buzz From CTV Saskatoon's Carla Shynkaruk: The idea relies on natural properties to take the sting out of health issues.

The sound of bees buzzing in their hive might make some people squirm, but one local couple says that sound has healing properties.

Valentyna Matyushenko and husband Owen McKeith have a healing bee house on their acreage just west of Saskatoon which they say helps several health problems.

They converted a sauna and bought two hives and their queen. The bees occupy the lower half of the house, inside the benches, but don’t enter the seating area. Each of the boxes has about 15,000 to 20,000 bees and by the end of the summer there will be close to 60,000.

Healing Bee House customers lie on benches, listening to the bees and taking in the smell. They can even fall asleep.

“The first thing you’ll notice is the sound of bees. For people who are a little bit afraid, it’s a little weird and unnerving at first,” McKeith told CTV News.

“It calms you down very much. With our stress level being so high this is really balancing out and of course with that it balances out hormone levels and for the stomach, the digestive system and the lymphatic system," Matyushenko said. The bee house has helped her knee problems, she said.

“As you relax and you hear the buzzing, you feel the vibrations and you start smelling the honey and the pollen and the beeswax and the propolis and you breathe them in and it’s just nice and relaxing,” McKeith said.

Their customer base is growing and the couple hopes others will swarm to the house to see the benefits.