Spoiler Alerts!
When I was in my most recent beekeeping class, one of the attendees mentioned a documentary she had see on bees titled Hive Alive on Netflix. I looked it up and saw it was a 2-part British television special. The episodes feature hosts Chris Packham and Martha Kearney along with other very knowledgeable people.
I took the opportunity to view the first episode and it was so well done. They presented a lot of good information in an accessible way and it made it even better when one of the hosts, Martha, explained that she had experience with bees and had had a hive.
The purpose of the mini-series was to expose as they said, the secret life of the bees. The filming took place in a beautiful garden setting in Somerset, England during the peak of summer. The crew utilized high speed cameras, listening devises, thermo cameras, and an observation hive to get some absolutely amazing footage both outside and inside the hives.
The information presented was well organized and visually interesting. Here is some of the information they covered.
For bees, it is all about gathering nectar and pollen to ensure the hive survives the winter, since bees winter as a colony. This is a good thing because come spring, hive is up and running where bugs like wasps all die except for the fertilized queen and when spring comes a new colony has to be established which takes time.
Some stats they mentioned were fascinating. The size of a hive is mind-blowing, 20,000 bees in mid-summer and peaking at 50,000 bees later in the season. For every 5 kilos of honey the bees make, 4 kilos are needed to maintain the hive. Bees have to fly 50,000 miles to make one pound of honey.
One of the cool experiments they showed was affixing a radio frequency transponder to a bee and tracking their path with military radar. It showed the bee mapping out the area around the hive. They said that foraging bees do an orientation flight to make a navigational map using landmarks and sun positions. It wouldn’t do the hive any good if the bees couldn’t find their way back to the hive. Bees can travel really far to get food, they were saying a confirmed 7 miles.
One of the things that did surprise me was the section where they talked about worker bees. I did not realize that workers bee started out working inside the hive but after a few weeks experience a hormone shift and some genes switch on and they become foragers for the rest of their lifespan. The actual brain structure changes to handle navigation. So cool.
The last experiment was checking out if bees and flowers communicate. Why does a bee go to one flower and ignore the next? It has to do with electric fields. Fascinating information.
I really enjoyed this first segment and would encourage anyone who is interested in bees (and has access to Netflix) to check out Hive Alive. I will definitely watch the second segment and let you know how it went.
Part Two
I viewed part 2 of Hive Alive on Netflix. I had enjoyed part 1 so much, I was excited to see the second half. I was not disappointed.
The vibe of this presentation is so indicative of what I truly enjoy about BBC productions. The landscape was stunningly beautiful sequences in the English countryside. I felt like the hosts were genuinely pleased to be doing what they were doing and were enthusiastic talking about bees.
In the week that had passed since the first installment, the hive has been evolving. The bees in the red group are now foraging and the white group is busy working inside the hive.
The foragers only have until the end of summer to collect enough nectar for the hive to survive the winter. It was interesting to see the footage of the foragers back in the hive waiting for a younger bee to come and take the nectar for processing into honey.
With all the collection foragers do, it only adds up to a quarter of a teaspoon of honey in their lifetime. Once a bee has transformed into a forager, their lifespan is not very long. It can be as short as one to two weeks or as long as three weeks depending on how intense the foraging is.
I think the most interesting part of the installment was when they showed what happens when Professor Adam Hart voluntarily gets stung by a bee. When a bee stings someone, the stringer is yanked out of the bee and the bee ultimately dies a couple hours later of dehydration.
The host, Chris Packham, handled the bee so carefully and used tweezers to keep the stinger from coming out of the bee. So, the bee was not harmed in the experiment. Adam said that the sting on arm was a burning pain, like a match head and as time progress he could feel the pain spreading. His heart rate rose from 75 to 96 from the adrenaline and his blood pressure rose to 165/95 from 134/86 partially due to pain response.
A thermal imaging camera showed increase in body temperature around the site of the sting. Very quickly the site of the sting had swollen into a lump with a red spot in the center. They said that with antihistamine, the swelling should go down in a couple of hours.
Host Martha Kearney looked at some of the medicinal qualities of honey. In particular, how honey might fight bacteria. In some cases, honey stopped cell division or in another poked holes in the wall of the cell. The honey the researcher was using is special for medical use (in other words, don’t try this at home).
The host noted that pesticides, imported diseases and intensive farming are all contributing to the bees’ decline. What can we do to help? The example showed how he took a piece of land the size of half a tennis court, stripped off the lawn and sowed annual mix, lots of arable weeds, and perennials which should hold for seven years. It attracted a lot of bees and was very pretty.
Hive Alive part 2 was really interesting with some really good information. I enjoyed the hosts and the series of experts. The bee footage was terrific and I loved the different experiment.
If you have a chance to check this documentary out, I liked it. Let me know what you think.