More Than Honey

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My great-grandfather

and my grandfather kept bees,

and my father had bees, too.

I wasn't that interested,

I didn't like being stung.

But when my father got on in years,

he said,

"If you don't start getting interested

in the bees, I'll just sell them."

That really got to me.

I thought,

"If my father and grandfather

can put up with bee stings, so can I.

I'm no sissy!"

PLEASE COUNT ALONG!

The bee's flying.

Konstantin, we can switch

the radar on now. I'm coming.

As we can see, the bee has decided

to fly to its original feeding site.

It gets to a location

where there used to be

a feeding place, but now it's gone.

The bee initiates a few search flights,

and flies around a bit.

But it doesn't fly back.

Instead, it makes a beeline east.

And east is the place

where the dance told the bee to go.

Someone's there with a feeding site.

And now it arrives.

OK, red 23 just landed,

and it's drinking.

And now it returns to the hive.

Not the way it has learned,

and not the way

that was communicated in the dance.

It takes a route

that it has somehow figured out by itself.

Now it's back at the hive.

We assume that even a brain

as small as a bee's

is capable of imagining two outcomes,

and that bees can predict the results

of their behaviour,

assess them and then plan:

"I've decided to do this

and now I'll fly to that specific site."

The bees are doing fine here today.

Let me tell you,

for them today is like Sunday.

No wonder their honey

turns out almost translucent.

Pure nature, no pesticides, no poisons.

It'll definitely be wonderful honey.

I can't wait to have it

on my plate.

Our native black bees are an old race

that acclimatized itself here

centuries ago.

If I were to bring bees up here

from the lowlands,

the colony would have problems

surviving the winter.

The bees up here

hibernate for more than half the year.

They've learned to acclimatize

themselves over generations,

so that's why it works.

What have we got here?

You and your yellow bum

have no business here. Scram!

Over there, beyond that mountain,

someone else has bees.

No idea what race he has.

But they fly all the way over here.

Mating takes place in mid-air.

Drones from other colonies,

from other beekeepers,

all congregate together

at the drone meeting area.

A queen mates with up to 10 drones,

so that's why

there are these half-castes.

- What race is that?

- Carnica.

It upsets me a little that

the old native race is dwindling away.

Look, it has those yellow rings

on its bum.

I had black bees for a long time,

my father always did.

Why did you switch?

As we say in Bernese German: No more

beekeeping with a ladder on my back.

- In other words, no hiving swarms.

- No?

Of my 70 colonies, only three swarmed.

- I don't believe it!

- Yes, that's all.

What's more,

the Carnica hardly ever sting.

- They sting less than black bees?

- Absolutely.

Sometimes I help people

who have black bees.

If I had to go beekeeping with them,

I'd quit.

- I couldn't work with 70 colonies.

- Really?

I don't even have a veil.

I never wear one.

Wouldn't you like to switch over?

I think I'm too old for that.

- You're not that old.

- But I am, I'm going downhill.

When I find that queen,

I'm going to twist her little neck.

There she is.

You little two-timer.

That's what happens to those

who seek pleasure elsewhere.

The queen lays an egg

here in this honeycomb.

Three days later,

a larva hatches from the egg.

It's the breeding stock

I want a new queen

with the same genes as her mother.

The bees will raise queens

from these re-deposited larvae.

They'll think it was a queen

who laid them there.

Only the royal larva is fed,

with royal jelly,

a secretion

from the salivary glands of the bees.

And then the larva, which would

normally become a worker bee,

turns into a queen.

Now I'm putting the frame

with the larvae into the nurse colony,

and I hope

I'll be getting 51 queens from this frame.

So, bees, behave.

You can see

the queen beginning to move her legs.

She'll hatch in the next few hours.

Now I'm going to stick it onto the honey,

here by the brood honeycomb,

so that the bees

can get to it from the bottom.

Still in her cell,

the queen opens the lid a bit

and sticks out her tongue

so that the bees can feed her.

This way, when she emerges,

she's already strengthened.

The clouds help you see it better.

Look! Over there!

Do you see all the drones?

There's the queen.

Right!

As soon as the queen starts laying eggs

and has covered the brood in the box,

she's taken out

and is ready for shipment.

This is nitro paint for cars.

We use a different colour each year.

That makes it easier

to find the queen in the hive

and you can see at a glance

how old she is.

To escort her on her journey to

wherever in the world she's being sent,

the queen is given a royal entourage.

Now a puff of smoke,

because the queen still smells of paint.

And some water

so they'll lick each other off

and become friends

and everything is fine.

- There you go.

- 60 euros? Thank you.

The price list.

Right.

And the invoice.

To Innsbruck, please.

- Sure it'll be there tomorrow morning?

- Yes.

Good.

This yellow neuron

not only tells the brain,

"That was a reward!"

It also tells the brain

that whatever is happening now is good.

And there are other neurons

that are responsible for fear or defence.

The most exciting question is:

in a social context, is an organism

as complex as a colony of bees

a controlled system

in regard to its emotional disposition?

We would think, yes,

the bee colony as a whole has feelings.

Let's have a look.

At first sight, it's looking quite good.

But there's hardly any brood.

Blast, Fred.

What do you see?

- Not good.

- No.

Look! A classic case, very bad.

This is a foulbrood honeycomb

if ever I saw one!

I hope that was the only one.

Something's wrong with this one, too.

I don't like the look of it.

They haven't cleaned the floor.

I don't like the look of that.

- We don't like that.

- Blast, damn it.

- See that?

- Yes, I do.

This colony is lost, Fred.

You can smell it.

Yes. If you can smell it,

the infestation is really bad.

Should we get everything ready

for sulphur fumigation?

- Any idea what causes foulbrood?

- Bacteria. It's highly infectious.

No idea where you got it,

maybe from foreign bees.

I'm so sorry. Rotten luck for you.

We drive south,

to Shanxi Province, by car.

It's about 1300 miles.

It takes us two days and two nights,

two drivers take turns driving.

That's a lot of distance to cover.

As soon as we get to the south,

we rent a big room to dry the flowers.

When the flowering period

in the south begins

we buy flowers from the farmers.

As soon as we have the flowers,

we start processing them.

We have a refrigerator in the car.

On the way back north, we connect it

when we stop for a break.

It helps to preserve

the pollen's fertility.

When the flowering period starts

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