How A Local Couple Used Their COVID Hobby to Remove Bees From Gillette Stadium
"When you get a phone call on the weekend, your first instinct is, ‘This can’t be good, right?’"
Like most, Diana and Matt Griffin were looking for a hobby to keep them busy during the COVID-19 pandemic. They ultimately chose beekeeping.
Three years later, they used their knowledge to remove a swarm from Gillette Stadium.
Diana was watching her son Dex’s baseball game on Saturday night when she got an unexpected phone call from the operations department at Gillette Stadium. As the marketing director for Patriot Place, she was a bit shocked to be contacted at 5 pm.
“The Patriot Place side of things, we’re a very small team,” Diana said in an exclusive interview with The Blazing Musket. “It’s really the GM, the operations, the leasing, and the marketing departments. So when you get a phone call on the weekend, your first instinct is, ‘This can’t be good, right?’ Or something needs to be addressed, especially when it’s your day off.”
The call was about a large mass of bees. The hope was that Diana could use her knowledge to guide them through the situation.
“They sent me a video,” Diana said. “When they swarm, it looks apocalyptic, right? It’s very scary when you see that many bees, [especially] if you don’t know enough.”
Diana was forced to multitask, keeping her attention on Dex's game while trying to troubleshoot. She knew that the swarm would eventually land somewhere. She also knew that there were several local companies that could take care of the situation.
Her biggest piece of advice was not to panic.
Her attempts to reach companies were unsuccessful because it was a Saturday night during swarm season. Most of those places are on retainer or have agreements in place. A Monday response was much more likely than the two-hour turnaround that was required.
Diana also wasn’t getting replies from the online forums that she frequents.
Without many options, she volunteered to come down to the stadium with her husband to deal with the swarm.
Upon her arrival, she realized why there was such a sense of urgency: the bees were near where the players walked into the stadium, and game time was fast approaching.
As reported by Gustavo Lopes of Nossa Rádio USA, Gillette Stadium officials considered having the players enter via the South End of the stadium instead of the North End to avoid the problem. While no one was really in danger, removing the swarm was the ideal solution to avoid any complications.
“Honestly, I think once they started to settle in, I kept saying, ‘You’re good. They’re doing their thing. They’re settling in. They’ve located the queen,’” Diana explained. “The other concern is that if you get a rogue soccer ball that might disrupt that settlement, I think that was more the issue.”
“People aren’t thrilled to have bees around,” Diana continued. “Our gut instinct is to panic. No one wants to get stung.”
Despite only joining the beekeeping community in 2020, Diana and Matt were confident that they could handle the job. By the time they arrived, the bees had calmed down with only a few flying around. Matt noted they had gathered together to stay warm.
After surveying the area to make sure there wasn’t more hiding, Matt began to scoop the bees into the box. Once some entered their temporary home, others followed. Matt called it a “straightforward” task.
“It was just a matter of waiting for them to do their thing,” Matt said. “Meanwhile, we’re standing there waiting [and] they’re getting ready to get the players to come out. They’re starting to run the pyro for the tunnel. It was like, ‘Alright so we should probably get this wrapped up as quickly as the bees will let us.”
Diana and Matt had the bees boxed up by the time the players entered the stadium. They contemplated leaving through a different exit but ultimately decided to stay because it was the shorter path out. They were out of sight from cameras, but they did get some looks from attendees of the game.
“It was a little weird walking through the tunnel with a bee suit on and a big box,” Matt said. “You get that second look from somebody. They see you and it doesn't really register, then it registers in their head and they’re like, ‘Does that guy have a box of bees walking through the stadium tunnel?’ That was kind of fun.”
The bees are now in a box on Diana and Matt’s property that houses three other hives. The plan as of Monday was to give the bees a few days to decide their fates. They would then visit them to see if they stayed or went elsewhere.
Monday was a normal day of work for Diana, filled with plenty of meetings. She suspects that she could get a shoutout in the weekly employee newsletter that comes out on Friday.
The praise isn’t really necessary–they got plenty of attention on Saturday. To them, it’s more important that they were able to safely relocate the bees.
“A lot of people would rather spray them with a can of pesticide and get rid of them and that happens even more now,” Matt said. “Even things like you walk around and you see mosquito and tick spraying companies, that all impacts the bees. They can’t land on stuff or they land on something that got sprayed and they’ll die. So it is harder and harder to keep them alive now.”
Properly removing the bees is in line with the mission of Patriot Place as they focus on sustainability. In fact, there was even talk about bringing hives to the property, though they certainly don’t belong on the field.
“Months ago we had some conversations about bringing hives to the property, but we just haven’t officially done that,” Diana said. “We also have hives on the property, on the Patriot Place side behind the Cranberry Bog.”
Diana and Matt returned home after their successful mission. Although they were trying to be discrete, they inevitably became the talk of social media. The tweet that most stuck out to Diana came from Caleb Pongratz, who said, “We have legit beekeepers on site.”
The comment was flattering because the duo has only been working with bees for a few years. Up until Saturday, their biggest accomplishment was yielding honey in 2022.
Matt commented on the tweet, saying, “I don’t think ‘legit’ or ‘expert’ are two of the words we would use to describe ourselves.”
Diana followed up, saying, they are “helpers.” Adding, “I think it’s in both of our natures no matter what the situation, whether it’s bees or no bees, if we get a call from someone on the staff that needed help, we’d help.”
The Griffins saved the bees and prevented any drama at Gillette Stadium. Not a bad weekend for the family, especially since Dex won his baseball tournament.
Great work on this story, and great work by Matt and Diana!
Thanks for this!