National Geographic documentary highlights the incredible abilities of bees around the world
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At the edge of a wildflower meadow sits an unassuming tan box with a sloping roof. But a closer look reveals that the box is buzzing with activity – literally. The warmth of spring has awakened the bees within this hive. Inside, a baby bee emerges from its wax cell, the first new bee of the year.
Worker Bee One, as it is called, will have a sweet but brief life feeding larvae and foraging for pollen and nectar. The efforts of her and her sisters to produce enough honey for the next winter are widely documented in Secrets of beesthe latest Secrets of series from executive producer James Cameron.
Secrets of beesas narrator and cinematographer Bertie Gregory says, reveals the “hidden world behind the buzz.” Although Worker Bee One and his hive are the mainstays of the two-episode series, their story is intertwined with that of other bees selected from more than 20,000 species around the world. Each episode is a charming love letter to insects, showcasing their astonishing abilities as well as their fearsome perils. The series premieres March 31 on National Geographic and April 1 on Disney+ and Hulu.
As Gregory crosses the meadow towards Worker Bee One’s hive, he laments having neglected the bees. “It was a mistake,” he said. “Despite their size, they may well be the most important animals on this planet.”
Secrets of bees claims that bees pollinate one in three mouthfuls of the food we eat – an overly simplistic statistic that leaves out other types of pollinators. But that doesn’t take away from the key message of the documentary: bees are crucial pollinators and an essential part of our world.
The first episode draws inspiration from awe and awe, following Worker Bee One as she learns to build iconic honeycomb structures and ventures in search of pollen and nectar to make honey. Although its target is flowers, some bees look to unique locations for their honey ingredients. The episode takes viewers to Ecuador, where vulture bees make honey from digested meat of a dead fish.
Other bees show their intelligence by learning to play with balls or solve puzzles in the laboratory, or use tools to fend off predators in the wild. The episode shows bees in Japan using leaves as a tool to launch attacks. murder hornets of the smell of their hive. Scientists knew that some bees use animal droppings to hide their hivesbut Secrets of bees documents for the first time that leaves may serve the same purpose, says the series’ scientific advisor, Samuel Ramsey, an entomologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “They have a higher level of [cognitive] treatment than initially planned,” he says.
The second episode focuses on existential dangers. In Ramsey’s lab, viewers discover bees with unusually good hygiene habits, which could help combat parasitic varroa mites. Mites infiltrate colonies and can transmit debilitating viruses to bees, sometimes causing colonies collapse. Bees usually don’t realize they have an intruder, says Ramsey, who seeks to understand how grooming affects resistance. “Seeing these bees make it,” he says, “really gives you a sense of hope that can be hard to find these days.” »
Bees also pose their own threats. Their excellent communication and teamwork skills allow them, outside their natural range in parts of Europe, western Asia and Africa, to outcompete many native bee species. To illustrate this, the episode transports viewers to a London roof garden, where a male wool carder bee spends most of his time defending his territory against bees rather than finding a female to mate with.
Although honey bees are foreign to most parts of the world, they have become an essential part of the environment. And their close relationship with people means they can act like a canary in the coal mine when pollinators are in peril, Ramsey says. Up to a quarter of bee species are in decline. (Notably, the documentary does not focus on the role humans have played in the decline of bees via climate change, loss of habitat And pesticides.)
Secrets of bees ends on a note of hope, spotlighting the people who are coming together to save the insects. Members of a Mayan community in Mexico are revive the practice of breeding Melipona beesa stingless species once found on the Yucatan Peninsula. And an Oregon beekeeper converted 450 acres of land into a wildflower meadow, which not only helps his bees produce more honey, but also provides food for the area’s native bees.
Overall, the documentary succeeds in its mission: to appeal to our sense of wonder to demonstrate that bees are worth saving.
