Clips
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Filming a wild honeybee nest in Africa
A making of shot - filming a wild honeybee nest in Africa.
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Making an insect drama
Producer, Verity White, gives us the low-down on her experience of making an insect drama:
Telling the biological story of the African honeybee was a mission we took very seriously. Honeybees are such fascinating creatures, and living wild in Africa they face more challenges and drama than most people would imagine. They’re like our British honeybees wild and dangerous cousins!
We worked very carefully with african honeybee experts to construct a story based around one queen bee and her adventures, trying to include as many of her challenges as possible to paint a fair picture of what these bees have to face on a daily basis.
Filming insects is always very delicate, and honeybees even more so because of the stings! But we worked with some real professionals out in Kenya, who guided us through the filming with their expert husbandry. We learnt so much about bee keeping – how to breed queen bees, and how much care needs to go into looking after a hive.
I doubt our story is even half as dramatic as the real life of an African honeybee queen – but we’ve done our best to bring it to you with as much glory and excitement as possible! -
Filming crew in bee suits
The crew were working closely with bees so had to wear bee suits to protect themselves in case of stings.
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Beehive fence
The beehive fence protects crops from elephants. Hives are wired together in a ring around crops. If one hive - or the wire - is knocked, all the hives will swing and the bees will defend their hives.
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George McGavin inspects bees on London rooftop
Credits
- Series Editor
- Steve Greenwood
- Producer
- Verity White
- Executive Producer
- Chris Cole
