Original subtitles

Subtitles by www.DocumentaryArea.com Simply the best Documentaries

You hear them before you see them.

Buzzing around the garden.

Hovering over the flowers.

Bees.

Wow!

So much honey!

But what if I told you bees could be the most important

animals on the planet?

Oh, you are beautiful!

I’m cinematographer and National Geographic Explorer,

Bertie Gregory.

Hello everyone!

For three years,

our crews have used special cameras to uncover

the hidden world behind the buzz.

A world of impossible architecture,

extraordinary intelligence.

Push, push, push.

Oh my gosh, yes!

And secret dances.

That is a waggle.

Now I wonder what they're saying?

Bees are more than just honey-makers.

More than stingers.

More than we ever imagined.

Poor bees, they're just getting soaked, huddling together,

desperately trying to keep warm.

There are over 20,000 species of bees.

And together, they pollinate a third of the food we eat.

So come closer.

The bees will reveal their secrets.

In the grip of winter, this hive seems abandoned.

But deep inside, a secret world few have ever seen.

A family of honeybees huddled for warmth.

For months, they've lived on honey made from the nectar of

last summer's flowers.

Producing it took the sacrifice of thousands.

And in just a few short weeks,

they'll have to do it all over again.

When temperatures outside reach 50 degrees,

the hive comes alive.

And the first new bee of the year is ready to emerge.

Let's call her Worker Bee 1.

Like all worker bees, she's female.

Males are born later in the season.

What makes her a bee,

and different from the millions of other flying insects,

are the thousands of tiny feathered hairs

covering her body.

They're even on her eyes.

These hairs are how she'll collect pollen.

But not for a few weeks.

Right now, she's hungry, and kind of clueless.

At a day old, Worker Bee 1 is completely reliant on

her older sisters.

This isn't just food she's sucking in.

But a protein-rich liquid infused with pheromones.

A chemical instruction to make her think and

act like her sisters.

Now, she knows how to be a bee,

and what her role is in this extraordinary superorganism.

You know, I've spent a good chunk of my life going to

far-flung places to film big animals.

And if I'm honest, I've overlooked the bees.

But that was a mistake, because, despite their size,

they might just be the most important animals on the planet.

One in every three bites of food we eat is pollinated

by a bee.

And there is just as much drama in a bee hive,

than on any African savannah.

Hello, my buzzy friends!

It's all good!

Let's see how you're doing.

Well, you all seem pretty chill,

so I'm gonna take my hood off.

Whoa, that's better.

Look at this one here.

Little newborn bee!

Go on, you can do it.

Yes! Good job!

Look at that.

Her first steps as an adult bee.

Oh, you are beautiful.

Hello.

And I'm not afraid because for the first day of their life,

they can't sting.

So you're gonna be a friendly bee, aren't you?

Well, it's so good to see a baby bee,

that means the colony's growing,

and they need the numbers.

This family has a lot to do.

From raising 60,000 new bees to collecting nectar

from millions of flowers.

All to make the 40 pounds of honey they need for winter.

See you later, everyone, good luck!

And the clock starts now.

The key to the entire operation comes down to just one bee.

The largest, longest-lived,

and most revered bee in the family...

...The queen.

Mother to everyone in the hive.

Her job is to lay eggs.

She glues one to the bottom of a cell.

Then, moves onto the next.

Egg, glue, move on, repeat.

2,000 times a day.

She could live five years, doing nothing, but laying eggs.

No time to rest.

No time to raise her babies.

That job is left to Bee 1 and her sisters.

They feed the larvae around the clock with a soup of

high-protein pollen, collected from flowers.

In just a week, the babies grow 1,000 times bigger.

And are then tucked into their cells,

ready for their radical transformation into adults.

So extraordinary, yet rarely witnessed.

When this generation emerges,

they'll take over nursery duty.

Leaving Bee 1 and her wave of sisters to move on to other

important jobs in the hive.

Working together is at the heart of honeybee society.

But most bees have to go it alone.

Solitary, like this red-tailed mason bee.

A little bee, with some unique talents.

She's on a quest to find a place to lay her first egg.

But only one kind of nest will do.

An empty snail shell.

This one's too small.

Nope.

Ugh, no chance!

Could this be the one?

Perfect!

Next, she gathers pollen,

food for when her youngster hatches.

It also becomes a bed for her egg.

But the pollen attracts a gang of red ants.

Her baby's future is at stake.

But this time, big jaws trump smaller ones.

Nursery secure, for now.

But the shell's at the wrong angle!

Rain could flood the entrance.

She can't let that happen.

By excavating the soil around her shell,

she creates the space to flip it.

And settles it into the ground.

But there's one final problem to solve, how to hide the shell.

And the way she does that has earned her the nickname.

The Broomstick bee!

Like a mini Harry Potter,

she carries stick after stick back to her shell.

This one's a little ambitious!

She's smart enough to use the world around her.

Weaving an impenetrable fortress with hundreds of

sticks to perfectly camouflage her nest and protect

her precious egg.

Once complete, she buzzes off.

But before the season's up,

she'll build at least 20 more nests.

A big job for one little bee.

As summer draws near, our honey bee population

has nearly doubled.

They need more space.

So young Bee 1 is assigned to the honeycomb construction crew.

With the lower walls complete, her job is to build up.

Using her sisters as a living scaffold.

She can climb anywhere in the hive.

And she's come prepared with tiny discs of wax made by

special glands on her body.

Bees are the only animals to use wax as a building material,

and they shape it into one of the wonders

of animal architecture.

The six-sided bee cell.

It's an engineering marvel.

Incredibly strong, yet almost weightless.

The perfect space-saving shape that uses the least

amount of wax.

The hive needs 200,000 new cells,

as cradles for every new bee,

and to store their precious honey.

The future of the family depends on it.

But their growing stores, are bound to attract trouble.

So, to keep out thieves,

Bee 1 is now assigned to be a bouncer.

Every bee in the hive smells the same.

Their scent is an "all-access" passcode.

Those that don't belong smell different.

And wasps are real stinkers.

These wanna-bees will do all they can to sneak inside

and steal the honey.

Just not on her watch.

In the mountain forests of Japan,

the Asian honeybee faces a much more frightening foe.

Giant hornets,

wasps on steroids!

Known by some as murder hornets.

Because that is what they do.

A nearby hive is in the firing line.

The honeybee's first line of defense,

is the bee equivalent of a stadium wave.

Designed to be a show of strength.

But it's not scaring the hornet.

The bees retreat and regroup.

Luckily, the entrance is too narrow for the giant.

Those inside are safe.

But this is just a scout, gathering intelligence.

The hornet marks the hive with a chemical scent...

...that will guide her and her clan right back.

The bees need to get rid of the smell, fast.

And what they do next is astonishing.

Workers race to collect fragrant leaves to mask

the hornet's scent.

This extraordinary behavior is a rare example of tool use.

The bees work quickly.

But not fast enough.

The hornet's back!

With her sisters.

Hornets eat adult bees.

But what they're really after,

are the thousands of larvae inside.

And together, they slice their way in.

The bees' only hope for survival is to respond as one.

Hold...

Now!

The bees vibrate their wings together to

generate extreme heat.

The temperature in the center reaches 115 degrees.

Hot enough to fry a hornet.

The next invader gets the same treatment.

Their collective action has achieved the near impossible

and saved the colony.

But the abilities of an individual bee can be

just as impressive.

Dr. Sammy Ramsey is one of the most influential

bee scientists in the world.

Bees are amongst the most intelligent insects

on the planet.

Their brain is about the size of a pinhead,

but it's packed with these neurons that are specifically

structured for learning.

Sammy has come to Queen Mary University of London

to see firsthand a remarkable breakthrough that looks inside

the mind of a bee.

The bumblebee lab is at the forefront of

understanding bee intelligence.

We know that these--

Dr. Alice Bridges is showing Sammy an experiment,

one that surprised the scientific community.

Go, go!

Alright, she's in!

Set loose in the chamber,

these bumblebees have a choice, make a beeline for the food,

or stop and play with wooden balls.

There's no real reward on this side.

There's no source of food. There's just the option to play.

Yeah, bees are pretty reward-driven animals, like,

they always want to get more food,

and yet we see here that they chose to play instead.

When we think of play,

we think of bears and lion cubs and puppies.

Insects are not the creatures that you would

normally think of.

This study is extraordinary because it's the first time

that play has been demonstrated in insects.

Play is something that's seen as a means of practicing for

the sorts of skills that you'll need more broadly in life.

Exactly!

Bees, especially these bumblebees,

are gonna be handling so many different types of flowers.

Perhaps this is a way that they can refine those skills before

leaving the hive.

But there’s another test that reveals even more

about bumblebee intelligence.

A lot of our experiments that we do here,

we design tasks as kind of these artificial flowers.

Ah!

We put on this yellow target here, sugary water,

they go crazy for this!

But ah, they can't get to it, because, because of the lid.

They have to do a series of two behaviors,

so they have to move the blue door first.

Oh, wow.

Push that out of the way, and then.

And then the red one.

I don't think a lot of people would have expected a bee to be

able to solve this.

For the experiment to work, one bee has to be trained.

Does someone in here know what they're doing?

Yep, we have a bee already trained, um,

number 75, if you can see her?

75, Oh, yeah, there she goes.

There you go.

Oh, she's motivated.

Oh, she's going straight for the--

She's hopefully gonna show us what we've taught her.

Okay, so she has to move the blue door first,

then the red one.

You're going for the red. Come on.

They always give it a little go, just in case.

Yeah, just in case.

Okay, but no, it looks like she's figured it out.

Come on, she knows what to do.

Come on, come on, push, push, push, yes.

Yes.

Go 75, you got this.

Come on, 75.

We are rooting for you.

There it goes! Keep pushing.

Come on, ooh!

Oh-ho!

Doing one thing to get there would be the

single order thinking,

but the second order thinking is I have to move this

in order to move that.

They're able to see farther into the future than just

the immediate future.

It’s really quite remarkable.

The really cool thing about this experiment is that

if we leave her in here for long enough with the box,

with the other bees,

they'll be able to learn how to open the box

with no training at all, just from observing her.

But have the untrained bee students

been paying attention?

We've got another bee here who might have

sort of started to figure out what's going on,

she's following behind.

Are you serious? That quickly?

Yeah!

Can you push that?

Come on.

Oh my gosh!

What a good bee!

Okay, there's one more step in this process.

Push, push, push, push.

- Come on! Come on! - Success!

The way that these insects have had to think their way

around problems forces us to think differently,

because they are a lot more intelligent and aware

than we've given them credit.

A bee's problem-solving skills are

vital in their daily lives.

Especially when gathering food, like pollen.

And few do it quite like the buff-tailed bumblebee.

This flower tucks its pollen away in tubular petals

hard to reach.

So she becomes a jackhammer.

Buzzing at up to 400 vibrations per second,

blasting the hidden pollen loose.

Where she catches it on her hairy belly.

But unlocking this treasure takes practice,

as this first timer discovers.

Whoops!

She's nailed the loosening bit at least.

Like any new skill, success comes from trial and error.

Yeah, there you go!

The bee now uses her legs to brush the pollen grains

down her body.

Next, she does something remarkable and

never filmed before.

To stop the pollen blowing off in flight,

she adds a drop of nectar, passed to her back legs,

to glue the grains into a solid packet for travel.

Back at the hive, summer is in full swing.

Inside, Bee 1 has finally been promoted to

the worker's top job.

Her new mission,

collect pollen and the raw ingredient for honey...

...Nectar!

But where to get it?

As usual, she turns to an older sister,

introducing the waggle dance.

It's how honeybees talk to each other.

These groovy moves tell others not just where to

find the best nectar,

but the angle to take when leaving the hive.

How far away it is.

And even any detours along the way.

It’s a bee’s GPS!

The 'beeline' the most direct path to the nectar.

Message received.

But leaving the hive is a risky business,

especially when it's your first time.

There's good reason for her to be hesitant.

Nearly half of all new foragers never see their family again.

One of the biggest dangers is getting lost.

So, on take-off,

Bee 1 faces the hive.

Then, makes a mental note of the landmarks around it.

Whoops!

Once she's locked in the view, she's off.

The trip could take her two miles from home.

With pitstops at thousands of flowers.

In her lifetime, she'll gather less than a teaspoon of nectar.

But every drop is vital to the family.

Not everything the flower hides is sweet.

A crab spider.

For Bee 1, it's hard to separate petal from predator.

But then she's never seen a spider before.

Lucky for her, this crab spider isn't hungry.

But some sisters aren't so fortunate.

Next stop pollen.

The powdery grains plants use to reproduce,

and a vital bee food.

The little pollen grains stick to her hairs.

Some will drop off on different flowers.

Seeding them as she goes.

This is the way bees pollinate three-quarters of

all flowering plants.

A partnership that dates back to the age of the dinosaurs.

Loaded with food, she heads for home.

But when your cargo of nectar and pollen doubles your weight,

it can make touchdowns, well, tricky.

Inside, Bee 1 unloads her baskets of pollen.

It'll be used later to feed the larvae.

Then, she passes her nectar to a sister.

But this isn't food sharing,

it's the recipe for making honey.

With each transfer,

the sisters add enzymes that break down the nectar

to make it edible.

The workers then store this sugar solution in cells.

But there's one final step.

Beating their wings at 170 times a second.

The sisters fan the mixture to evaporate the water.

And after three fantastic days, the transformation is complete.

Nectar has become liquid gold.

Honey!

It takes 2 million flowers to make just one pound of honey.

The sisters will need 40 times that to see them through winter.

And they're only halfway there.

For some bees, just finding nectar is the hardest part.

In the Amazon jungle,

flowers are less common than you'd think.

So firebees have a plan B.

Sap-sucking treehoppers!

But the bees don't eat the little suckers.

They farm them!

Tree hoppers excrete a sugary substance called honeydew,

similar to nectar.

And they're willing to trade it...

...for protection from their enemies,

like assassin bugs.

Now, to claim the reward.

But there's no payment without a little tickling.

Who needs flowers,

when getting food is like turning on a tap?

But there's a catch,

honeydew is too heavy to fly with,

so the firebees must lighten the load.

Unlike honeybees,

they let the sun's heat evaporate the water,

and concentrate it into a sugary syrup that's

light enough to carry home.

Firebees are not the only ones who've had to adapt

to a scarcity of nectar.

There's one bee in this jungle that's taken its diet in a

whole new direction.

Vulture bees, the world's most unusual bee.

Like their namesake, they have a taste for the dead.

And their sense of smell is so acute they can sniff out

their food from half a mile away.

A rancid fish.

This is the only bee that relies on rotting flesh.

She may have found the fish first,

but you can always rely on a fly to muscle in on a free meal.

Finders keepers doesn't work here.

But she is a bee with attitude!

Willing to go jaw to jaw with even the

roughest-looking diners.

Luckily, her sisters appear and help to see off the competition.

Just like real vultures,

these bees are the ultimate clean-up crew.

And amazingly, they can even turn this digested

meat into honey.

The sisterhood is having a successful summer.

They've filled more than half their honey cells.

But it's come at a cost.

Our Bee 1, the year's first arrival has given it her all.

Being a worker, her life was sweet but short.

To stop the spread of disease, fallen sisters must be removed.

But, for some, letting go can be hard.

Bee 1 isn't the only casualty.

Hundreds of sisters die every day.

And yet, the colony has ballooned to over 60,000.

A population boom that triggers the most dramatic event

in the family's life.

It's the signal for the queen to leave the hive and

start a new colony.

Many of her daughters must follow.

But, before they leave,

they feast on the hard-won stores.

It could be days before they'll feed again.

We don't yet understand what makes one bee leave

and another stay.

But soon, hundreds, then thousands, join the queen.

Half the colony.

It's how honeybees colonize new locations.

30,000 now take to the air in a swarm.

Their first task is to set up a temporary base.

Scouts will set off from here to look for a permanent home.

And that makes it a perfect time for me to check in.

Hello everyone!

You are looking very beautiful.

So many bees!

It's just this massive living structure.

And buried deep down in the center is the Queen,

with all the other workers gathering around her.

Just the most amazing thing to look at.

It looks pretty intimidating; there's a lot of stinging power

right there, but,

oh, right on my lip.

Please don't go in my mouth!

See, it's a common misconception that

when bees are swarming,

they're always very angry and aggressive.

But they don't have any honey or brood to defend,

so they're really kind of preoccupied at the moment.

I'm just part of the landscape.

So, this is a great opportunity to film them up close.

The ones at the top, holding onto the branch,

are doing the heavy lifting.

But every bee in the swarm plays a part by holding tight

to her sisters.

Wow.

And tonight, it looks as if they'll have to hold on

tighter than ever.

I think rain’s coming.

It's the last thing the vulnerable family needs.

It is pouring!

Poor bees, they’re just getting soaked.

With nothing to shield them,

the entire colony could die from the cold.

They’re huddling together, desperately trying to get warm.

But even now, the bees work together.

They rotate their positions to take their

turn out in the elements.

But if it keeps raining like this,

they won't survive the night.

There's nothing I can do but hope they'll

make it till morning.

Back at the hive, things look just as bleak.

They've lost their queen and half their workers.

Honey supplies are down,

and winter is just four months away.

Previously on Secrets of the Bees.

After months of tireless work,

the honeybee family split in two.

Half the sisters left,

leaving those that remained in a depleted hive

without a queen.

While breakaways found themselves in the

eye of a storm.

It is pouring!

Poor bees, they’re just getting soaked.

Now, I’m back to see if the swarm survived the night.

Oh, there are lots of bees flying.

Here we go.

How you doing, bee swarm?

They actually look okay.

Well, that is a relief,

I was worried they’d got dangerously cold

in the rain.

Alright, I’m going to grab my camera.

Out in the open, the bees are still vulnerable.

They desperately need a roof over their heads.

The plan now is that most of the bees are going to stay put

and conserve their energy,

but some of them are gonna leave.

There she goes. Woo-hoo!

These are the scouts,

the most experienced workers.

Their job is to go house hunting.

Each scout can only search as far as the queen can travel,

about two miles.

And any hole is worth investigating.

She’s looking for somewhere roomy enough

for the colony to grow.

Check.

An entrance narrow enough to defend, check.

But this is just too open.

A tree hole could tick all the boxes!

A safe height from the ground.

And space for her 30,000 sisters.

Perfect!

Now to convince the swarm.

That is a waggle!

Well, this is the infamous honeybee waggle dance.

This might look like a bunch of random butt shakes,

but this is an important message.

This is how the scouts tell the rest of the colony

about the location and the quality of a new

house they found.

And it’s the most advanced communication system

of any insect.

Now I wonder what they’re saying.

Everyone listen!

You won’t believe the place I just found;

it’s got a sweet view, it’s not far from here,

and it’s got so much room for honey!

The longer the dance,

the further the sisters know to travel,

and her enthusiasm tells the others just how

great the place is.

The other scouts check the hole out...

to be sure it’s as good as she says.

And if they like it, they’ll waggle too.

It’s one bee, one vote,

democracy in action!

Once a majority of the scouts agree,

it’s a done deal.

All 30,000 bees take to the air.

The swarm finally has a new home.

A place for this half of the sisterhood to grow and thrive.

Swarming is a dangerous gamble,

but it’s one honeybees must take if they’re to spread

to new areas.

It’s also the only time they move any real distance.

Unless we force them.

Every year, 30 billion honeybees are trucked from all

over the US to the Central Valley of California.

It’s one of the largest movements of animals

on the planet...

...and known as migratory beekeeping.

Let’s start cleaning up this bed,

get the snow off.

Ryan Lieuallen is a fifth-generation beekeeper.

I've been exposed to them with my dad and grandpa

since I was 3 or 4, so pretty much my whole life.

Each winter, while the bees are saving their energy,

Ryan transports thousands of his hives from their home in

Oregon to California,

not for honey making but to pollinate Almond trees.

Here comes the net.

It’s an 800-mile journey.

An unimaginable distance for an animal that would normally

never travel more than 6 miles from its home.

Midway through the trip,

as the truck descends from the Rockies into California,

the temperature suddenly climbs 20 degrees.

The bees start to awaken.

You can smell them.

The whole truck will buzz.

This is the most dangerous part of

the bees’ journey.

Anytime we stop...

...they'll start to fly and come out the entrances.

They'll get stuck in the nets and die.

After two long days of travel,

the bees reach their destination.

They join millions of others,

a concentration of hives found nowhere else.

But have Ryan’s bees survived the journey?

Oh, this is not a good one.

Yeah, all these bees that I'm finding on the bottom boards,

they got frozen on the drive down.

Migratory Beekeeping is, it's hard.

You do your best to keep them healthy and alive but,

sometimes you know, you just can’t.

With no source of nectar here to feed his bees,

Ryan provides a substitute.

Food that simulates spring,

cueing them to grow their colony as fast as possible.

Goodnight, girls!

After two weeks, the hives are spread

across the orchards.

In pole position for the bloom.

Over 100 million almond trees flower at the same time.

And the bees will need to visit every one of them

in just a week.

It’s time for Ryan’s bees to get to work.

Each visits up to 5000 flowers a day.

And while they’re collecting food,

pollen grains are transferred from one flower to another,

seeding the plants.

It’s the largest pollination event on earth.

But the flowers only lasts 6 days.

The petals start to fall,

and there's no more bloom for the bees.

Over three-quarters of the world’s almonds

come from California.

A $20 billion business, totally dependent on honeybees.

This year, the event has taken its toll on Ryan’s bees.

I'm very concerned with the future.

What are my actions today going to amount to tomorrow?

Ryan is convinced that there’s a better way ahead.

Two weeks ago,

the swarm left the hive with half its

workforce and no queen.

But before leaving,

the old queen laid an egg in each of four special cells.

Since then, they’ve been carefully tended by the sisters.

Each contains a queen in waiting.

The first to emerge has the advantage.

It’s the moment the sisters have been waiting for.

This could be their new queen.

Leader and egg layer in one!

She lets everyone in the hive know she’s ready to rule.

Communicating in a way no other bee can.

She toots.

The sound travels through the walls of the honeycomb.

At each toot,

the colony freezes in recognition of their new queen.

The spare queens, still in their cells,

answer back with a quack.

A reminder to the already emerged queen that

she has rivals.

To keep her crown,

she must leave the hive and mate.

If she fails, the spare queens will get their chance.

Until then, the sisters keep them calm with food

and gentle vibrations.

If the emerged queen succeeds,

she will kill the imprisoned rivals.

At this time of year,

the queens are not the only new bees on the block.

This one is big.

A big boy, to be precise.

Males are born in the warmer months.

Known as a drone, he has one important job...

...that’s if he can squeeze out of his cell!

Luckily, his sisters are there to lend a hand.

Males like him do nothing to contribute to the family.

He can’t collect nectar or pollen.

He can’t even feed himself.

All he does is get in everyone’s way.

His only purpose in life is to mate with queens from other

hives and spread his family’s genes.

It's the reason for his large eyes!

Twice the size of his sisters.

They give him a complete view of the skies,

perfect for spotting queens in flight.

Just not his sister.

She must go find her own drones

from another hive.

She’ll mate with up to 20 of them.

A trait unique to honeybee queens.

Most bees have a single partner.

And for some,

finding that mate is a dangerous task.

This is one of Australia’s driest deserts.

But for just a few weeks a year,

carpets of nectar-rich flowers bloom.

And when they pop up,

so do one of the largest bees on the planet.

A female Dawson’s bee.

She’s spent a year alone underground,

waiting for this very moment to find a mate.

Her radiating scent has lured in dozens of contenders.

But she only needs one.

It’s smart to stay in her hole, out of reach.

Let the males take their frustration out on each other.

Another female tries her luck.

And gets more than she bargained for.

Since female Dawson Bees only mate once,

competition is fierce.

In the pile-up, this female could be injured,

or worse.

Her scent is so powerful that even after death,

it still attracts attention.

Most females have now emerged,

and there are fewer active males.

The cautious female checks out the scene.

Just one male, the perfect time to make a move.

But it’s a mistake.

Males are relentless.

But she has found the one!

And he holds on for dear life.

They must reach cover as fast as her little legs

can carry them.

Finally, some peace.

Once mated, her scent changes,

and the males lose all interest.

Her timing has been perfect.

The brief burst of flowers provides her and her young with

everything they’ll need.

Back at the hive,

the queen has successfully mated and makes

her triumphant return.

With her on egg-laying duty, the population booms.

And the workers ramp up productivity.

Nectar collection is in full swing.

They need to make and store 40 pounds of honey to

survive the winter.

And they still have a way to go.

With fall approaching and nectar drying up,

every drop of stored honey is precious.

Not to be wasted on freeloaders.

With mating season over,

the males have outstayed their welcome.

So their sisters turn on them.

Every drone is evicted.

Dead or alive.

And the hive becomes a female-only zone once more.

With just a few weeks left until winter,

it’s a critical time.

But it’s now that many honeybees all over the world

fall victim to something beyond their control.

If you’re going to understand.

For entomologist Dr. Sammy Ramsey,

stopping this threat is his life’s work.

So, I want you to consider for a moment that you are host

to a parasite that is about the size of your hand.

This body size ratio is wild.

Honestly, it be, it would be like, it would be like,

a human having these.

These are Varroa Mites.

These are the parasites that honeybees have on their bodies

that are actually liquefying their livers and

sucking it out of them.

The Varroa mites are destructive on a scale that is

hard to fathom at times.

They are the most threatening,

widely distributed parasite of bees on this planet.

Sammy and his student, Justin,

need to check on infested hives and assess the effects

the mites have on the bees.

Mmh, definitely deformed wing virus in this one.

Yeah, poor girl. Her wings are just so short.

They have so many cells that are opened on this frame,

that is not a good sign.

When Varroa infiltrate colonies and attach themselves to bees,

they wreak havoc on the bees’ immune system.

Viruses are able to grow out of control and cause these

really problematic symptoms in the bees.

To study the enemy,

Sammy has a way to collect mites from a honeybee hive.

There you go. There you go.

You're about to donate your mites to science.

Varroa mites don’t stay attached to bees if their

feet get covered with powdered sugar.

Those are some dusty bees!

And now we just roll it.

And then we shake!

That sugar will get into all the crevices,

and then they'll slide right off the bees.

Sorry, ladies, but this is for your own good.

You don't want these mites, I promise.

Check it out, this colony is mite-ey for sure!

Woof.

This is my favorite part, though.

Get to actually put them back home.

All right, ladies, you are going to be really popular.

Who doesn't love a sweet bee?

Returning to his lab, Sammy wants to test the mites

on a special group of bees.

They could hold the solution to dealing with infestations.

- Ready? - Mmm-hmm.

We can introduce those mites into our observation hive,

and we can watch how the bees actually handles

a huge influx of mites all at once.

Alright, close it, close it, close it!

There you go.

Good.

These mites right there on the glass.

They're waiting for a bee to pass by that they

can just latch onto.

There you go.

These mites are masters of disguise.

They have learned all the different ways of masking their

smell, even the feel of their bodies.

They mimic the plates and hairs of the bee's body,

such that when a bee is touching itself,

the parasite feels like its own body.

But this colony has a unique superpower.

The bees in our observation hive are

of a specific genetic stock that's able to resist certain

elements of the Varroa mites' takeover of the colony.

Compared to typical honeybees,

these bees groom their bodies much more frequently.

They can tell that something is wrong,

and they need to do something about it.

Well done, you.

Yes!

Sammy and his team hope that if this grooming

trait can be genetically reproduced in other honeybees,

varroa mites won’t get a chance to spread

their deadly viruses.

Despite this threat,

the global honeybee population is still in the trillions.

And our passion for beekeeping has caused some

unexpected problems for wild bees.

This little garden in the heart of the city was

especially designed for bees, of all kinds.

This whole patch is just full of honeybees.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

I can see one big bumblebee back in there.

But this whole patch is just loaded with honeybees.

And it's easy to think, great, loads of bees,

but actually it's more complicated than that.

These honeybees aren’t wild;

they’re domesticated, more like livestock.

I'm sure their hive isn't far from here.

Just in London,

there’s an estimated 400 million honeybees.

Whoa!

40 times more than the human population.

Because of the incredible way that honeybees communicate

and work as a team,

they’re often the first to find these fresh

patches of flowers.

So, they just outcompete the wild bees.

But there is one wild bee here trying to

stand up to them.

In the corner of this patch of flowers,

I have found a magical little kingdom.

And the king of this kingdom, here he comes!

Is this guy.

He's a male wool carder bee.

Unlike the other bees on this patch,

this male carder bee’s is here to defend his territory,

a lamb’s ear plant,

hoping a female turns up.

Anyone that comes into his little patch gets a beating.

Oh honeybee!

Here he comes.

Whoopah, get out of here.

Oh honeybee!

Here he goes.

Ka-pah!

It's incredible how much action and drama there is just

in this little patch.

He's just so feisty.

Oop, Bumblebee invader.

He's not gonna like that!

Chaos.

Now that the coast is clear,

the one bee he’s been waiting for can finally

make an appearance.

Oh, here comes a female!

He’s gonna take off in a second and go for that female.

Ooh, little bit of mating!

Right now, this wool carder bee should be

focusing on females.

Instead, he’s constantly chasing honeybees feeding

in his territory.

He must be just completely exhausted.

It used to be thought that to save the bees,

put in lots of hives.

But the reality is that what you are doing by introducing

these new honeybees’ hives is just

introducing more competition.

What’s important is giving wild species like

the carder bee enough space and food to thrive.

Up to a quarter of all wild bee species are in decline.

But there’s one wild bee,

who, with a helping hand, is making a surprising comeback.

A Melipona bee, on lookout duty.

Her job is to guard the nest entrance from insect invaders.

And she’s got every angle covered.

Unlike honeybees, she’s stingless.

But who needs a sting when you’ve got jaws like these?

For the next two weeks, she’ll stay right here,

all day, protecting the colony so her sisters

can focus on foraging.

Meliponas feed from over 60 plant species in

the Mexican jungle.

Without these vital pollinators,

this unique ecosystem could disappear.

At the nest, our sentinel is still on high alert.

Not just for approaching enemies,

but so she knows when to duck...

...for her returning sisters.

A dangerous job, but someone’s got to do it.

Because inside is a real treasure,

future generations of Meliponas in their cells.

These bees used to be found all across Central America.

But their range is now much smaller.

Habitat loss and pesticides mean their numbers

have dropped dramatically.

Humans haven’t been good to them.

But that’s changing.

Hello, my little bees!

My babies

How are you?

Dona Antonia Ku Yah and her Mayan community have

rekindled the ancient art of Melipona beekeeping.

They could bite her, but don’t.

Antonia is one of the team.

The character of the Melipona bees is such that...

if you treat them with love,

they will love you back.

They don't want to get down!

They want to stay!

Antonia provides the bees with a clean home,

sheltered from the sun,

and bordered by water so other insects can’t scuttle in.

It doesn’t mean our guard takes her job any less seriously.

But the added protection gives the sisters more time and

space to produce some of the most valuable

honey in the world,

prized for its medicinal qualities.

Unlike honeybees,

who process their honey by fanning it,

Meliponas blow nectar into bubbles to evaporate the water,

then stash it in giant pots.

The Melipona beekeeping knowledge is passed through

the generations, and any new helper needs

to be introduced to the bees.

Look, this is what you do.

Antonia harvests just 30 ounces from

each colony per year.

Far less than a typical honeybee hive would produce.

By keeping Meliponas,

she’s not only making herself a useful income,

but also helping a wild species and the forest that

depends on them.

But the global demand for honey ultimately depends on

large-scale beekeepers, like Ryan.

His bees are now back in Oregon after the Almond Pollination to

spend the rest of the year making honey,

but they’ve had a rough time.

For us, this year was the worst.

The percentage of our bees that died was over 50%.

I’m a fifth-generation beekeeper,

and I’m telling you this is not sustainable.

So Ryan has an ambitious plan.

With the help of his family,

he’s attempting to do what few have done before.

We have 450 acres that we're going to convert

to pollinator habitat.

It’s gonna be one of the largest in the

entire continental US.

Ryan is growing a massive wildflower meadow that

will provide for his honeybees and produce large quantities of

top-quality honey.

This one’s the sand point,

and the alfalfa is a little tiny one.

They look like... tiny rocks.

Yeah, aren't they pretty? Like little, little Easter eggs.

Yeah.

Ryan is blending a mix of wildflowers which will

ensure there’s always something in bloom between

Spring and Fall.

- Ok, ready for a drive?! - Yeah!

Now all Ryan has to do is wait for nature to

take its course.

Look at the color!

Have you ever seen one with that color before?

That’s amazing, Ryan!

Let's try some bugs.

Let's go find a bug right here!

Walking with the kids through the flowered meadows to

show them all the pollinators.

Not just the honeybees but all these

different style pollinators,

leaf cutter bee, solitary bees.

They get interested in what they’re seeing.

Quite the little ecosystem on this bush, huh?

What is that?

Wow!

It’s a honeybee.

It's a honeybee. It's two honey bees.

Three.

They’re sleeping in there.

Oh!

‘Cause they got cold during the rainstorm.

Oh my gosh!

Are they dead?

No, no, they’re sleeping, it’s like, when they get cold.

They don’t even know they are learning,

but they are gaining such an insight to this system

of seeds to flowers to pollinators.

Can you taste it with the tip of your tongue?

You kinda gotta squeeze it out.

It’s good, right?

Are you a bee now?

Are you gonna go pollinate some things?

Ryan hopes to give up the annual almond

pollination journey and instead develop sustainable

beekeeping here at home in Oregon.

Creating the pollinator habitat is something that

I can do to give back.

We can all play a role.

We can plant more flowers,

or we can stop destroying them.

Either way, it's a positive impact.

With winter just around the corner,

the time has come to see if the hive is ready.

Let’s take a look.

Wow, so much honey!

You have been busy bees!

You can see each one of these cells is just packed

full of honey.

And on top is that thin little membrane cap.

And that's like the bees putting a lid on their

jars of honey.

Against the odds, the hive has triumphed.

They’ve made enough honey to survive the winter.

Good job, bees, you’ve done it.

The honeybee will always be our loyal friend.

But we’ve got a lot more to thank them for than just honey.

They are key pollinators of our crops.

It’s worth remembering that there are over

20,000 other species.

Together, they’re responsible for a third of the food we eat.

But many are in steep decline,

and some on the very edge of extinction.

We are now changing the world faster than ever before.

And they just can’t keep up.

So it’s not just a shame we’re losing the bees;

we need the bees.