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More_Than_Honey_(2012) ,BR_MKV_H264_AC3[5.1](ZeroOneFilm,Ger,Eng,Chi,Sub) 1280x720

My grand-grand father and my grandfather were keeping bees,

and my father, too.

First I was not interested in bees, I was afraid of bee stings.

When my father got older he said to me:

"If you keep on avoiding bees, I will sell them."

I did not like the idea.

I told myself:

"If my parents could stand the bee stings, I can stand them, too."

After all I am not a softie.

My family used to be bee farmers

My grandfather had a tin can factory

He had a garden with fruit trees and berries

and bee hives

I liked my grandfather also because he had many animals, like dogs and horses

The bees were the favourite animals of grandpa

He owned 150 bee hives

Lying in the grass of his garden, I used to listen to the bees.

My father explained to me how the bees are necessary for the fertilisation of the flowers

To attract the bees, the flowers produce sweet honey.

By moving from one flower to the next the bees also transport pollen.

By collecting honey, the bees also fertilize flowers

My grandpa was a manager over gardens machines and people.

He was fascinated how everything worked together

But nowadays the bees have a hard time. Since a few years many bees are dying

Not only in Switzerland. Bees are dying worldwide.

It's in the news all over. But the cause is still a mystery

I start my journey trying to solve this mystery

It's almost full bloom now.

It's such a gorgeous time of year to be out here

It is just beautiful

And no one sees this.

Only the beekeeper sees this, and the farmer sees this.

Listen.

Can you hear that?

That's the sound of money.

Fresh printed money.

Bees and trees.

Nice.

Ladies,

how are you today?

Are you busy?

It's warm, it's sunny.

An old maid.

That's a nut that didn't get shaken and then got hold.

And right there.

Yummy, delicious.

One third of all we are eating would not exist without bees

Grandpa told me how it works

All colourful and good-smelling flowers and plants get fertilized by insects

All other plants are fertilized by the wind.

Grandpa was drawing the labels for the jam jars himself

But the competitors were more efficient and imported the fruits by railway

Grandpa went bankruptcy In the end he only had the bees.

They still kept bringing him honey but apples were growing in the lawns he lost

It's sort of a deal that we made with the almond growers

We know going in. There are risks and opportunities.

The almond orchards, they pay a lot of money.

I mean. It's no mystery. We've got 4000 bee hives here

With 150 Dollars a hive that's 600'000 dollars.

To me that's real money.

That might be Joe Black.

He might be flying down to Bakersfield today.

I think California produces 80%

of the world production in almonds.

In terms of the almonds that are actually in the market in the world,

it's higher than that. It may be close to 90%.

It is not commercial to grow almonds on a very small scale.

I know of no reason why that system will not be sustainable for the long term.

There is nothing that I have seen in my 35 years in the industry that will lead me to think

that this concentration of almonds in one area is self-defeating in one way.

That it will somehow crash as a result of being concentrated.

I have seen nothing that would indicate that.

We would not have a business without the bees.

Without some type of insect pollinator almonds would not have any crop.

We have proven that again and again.

Our business relies entirely on pollination by the bees.

Apposite to bumblebees or butterflies bees always stick to one type of flower.

One bee always flies to the apple tree an other bee always flys to another colourful flower.

Only when the whole job with one type of flower is finished a bee will change to an other type.

But here they do not have a choice.

There is nothing but almonds.

Inside the bee hive the bees transfer the collected nektar to their sisters.

They keep on chewing until it turns into honey,

then they store the honey into honey combs.

They pack the pollen into small lumbs,

and store it as protein reserves.

But the bees also bring home information about the surrounding.

As a first-grade student I saw a silent movie about bees

The title of the movie was "the dances of the bees".

The director of the movie was Karl von Frisch, a scientist.

He received a Nobel Price for his studies especially for the discovery of "the dances of the bees".

As he noticed, the bees tell their sisters in the hive where and how far away from hive the nektar is located.

The closer to the hive the faster they shake their tails.

As a kid in the cinema, I was annoyed by the smart bees with their complicated geometry.

The bees a so terribly smart and complicated.

"Please count yourself!"

At the "Freie Universität Berlin" professor Menzel studies the question if bees can make free decisions.

His experimental setup leads the bees into a dilemma.

They already know one place with nektar.

An other bee then gives them information about a second equally good place with nektar.

What will the bee do?

"Bee takes off"

Constantin, please switch on the radar. I will walk to the receiver.

We can see here that the bee decided to fly to the old nektar place.

She arrives there. There used to be a place with nektar.

But now there is no more nektar. We have removed the nektar.

Now she flies around in circles searching the nektar.

Now she is not flying back to the hive.

She is flying towards East.

Eastwards is the second nektar place, which was told her by the tail-shaking in the hive.

Here is the second nektar place. And here she is!

Ok, I can announce the landing of red bee number 23.

Now she carries the nektar.

Now she has to fly back to the hive. She calculated the best route to fly back.

Here she arrives at the hive.

We can assume that even the small brain of a bee is capable to make a decision between two possible options.

She is a lovely little insect. Very tolerant.

Not very smart, but really tolerant.

Two weeks from today The place here looks like an orchard to us,

but to them it looks like a desert. There is nothing to eat.

The almond grower will call me saying: "The bloom is over you may now go."

So we do go. Because if we would leave the bees here, they would starve.

We are about to be run over.

This ribbon? - I will do this ribbon, then that.

Okay.

Thank you.

He is starting from the other ribbon.

So maybe we will go a little away.

If he would just not spray the bees, that would be great.

That's great.

Because it is really ...

You know, ideally they would spray at night. When the bees are in.

By the time the material is dry, and isn't so lethal. It is the next day.

If they would just spray at night.

But. You know. You can't see at night.

They don't know where they are at night. These fields are massive. They get lost.

They are going to do what they are going to do.

It does not kill the bees. But it repels the bees.

If after this material has dried on the bloom.

The bees bring that material back to the colony and feed it to the babies.

19 days later we see an impact on the brood

We see brood die off.

And it is the fungicide at work. Pretty much everyone knows it.

That's the only two motivations in life: Greed and fear.

I don't know how to shrink a business or a life style.

I would not be happy. That is not in my DNA.

We are capitalists. We want to grow.

Total global domination.

Here the bees are feeling good.

They are having Sunday today.

No wonder they are making such a clear honey.

Pure nature, no fungicide, no poison, anywhere.

This will be a wonderful honey.

I'm already looking forward to serve this honey.

Our bees are from an old rural breed.

The have accustomed themselves to the surroundings since centuries.

If I would bring bees from the middle land up here,

These bees would have a hard time to survive the winter.

My bees need to survive a winter longer than half a year.

And my bees are now used to that.

That's why it works well now.

Look at that ...

You don't belong here with your yellow tail. Get away!

There, behind that mountain, someone has bees.

I have no idea what breed he is having. But occasionally his bees fly over here.

The strange bee with the yellow tail is living in another bee hive.

Her virgin queen was flying over the mountain during swarming and was inseminated here by male bees.

This insemination happens somewhere in the air.

The queen finds a swarm of drones.

Drones (male bees) from another colony. From another beekeeper.

A queen gets inseminated by up to 10 drones.

Like this a mixing can occur.

What kind of breed this is? - Carnica.

I am a bit disappointed because the old rural breed slowly disappears.

Yes, they are having this yellow tail.

I used to have the rural breed. My father too.

Why did you change to Carnica?

To tell the truth. Now I don't need a ladder anymore.

No more searching and collecting swarms. - Really?

Of my 70 colonies only three of them flew around for swarming.

Really? - Yes, indeed.

Also, I get bitten only very seldom by Carnica bees.

So, you are saying these bees bite less than bees from my rural breed? - For sure.

Sometimes I work with friends having the rural breed.

If I would have to do beekeeping with the rural breed again, I would stop.

I would not be able to have 70 colonies. - Really?

I don't need a protecting net.

I never use it anymore.

Don't you want to change as well? - I think I am too old for it.

You are not that old yet, aren't you. - I am, I'm getting weaker.

The fact that the insemination happens in the air by other drones,

not inside the own hive by the own brothers,

is a natural protection against incest.

The queen is the mother of all the 50'000 bees in the hive

She is laying up to 2'000 eggs per day,

which corresponds to the weight of her own body.

The other bees in the hive take very good care of the queen.

They feed her. They clean her.

When the queen dies, the bees have to raise a new queen.

This risky period takes one month

The queen can also lay not inseminated eggs. These eggs will develop into drones.

The eggs which were inseminated by drones will develop into working bees.

The egg first develops into a larva

The bees feed the larva with nectar and pollen

Then they close the lid.

The larva pupate,

and three weeks later a bee emerges.

The bigger male drones need three days longer to hatch out.

The drones must be fed by the bees,

such that they have enough strength for their daily flight in the afternoon,

hoping to find a princess in the air.

In autumn, at the end of the mating season the remaining drones are killed by the bees.

If I find the new queen, I will have to kill her.

Here she is.

You were having fun with foreign drones.

That's the penalty for it.

Actually honey is not meant for us humans.

Grandpa had to steal the honey from the bees,

and gave them cheap sugar to compensate.

Like trading glass pearls for gold with the native Americans 300 years ago.

We even increased their honey yield by breeding.

More yield, less bites.

Breeding bees means controlling their queen.

She is the key figure.

The colony decides when they need a new queen.

Then they start building a special cell.

Before the new princess hatches out, the old queen leaves the hive with most of the bees,

to leave the hive for the new generation.

Starting with one colony, suddenly there are two colonies.

Beekeepers control and manipulate this natural process.

They take away the queen from the colony,

forcing the colony to breed new queens.

I put a fertilized egg into this cell.

Three days later there will be a larva.

I put this larva here to the big cells.

Here the bees raise new queens, with special nectar.

By marking the larva with a special royal jelly

the bees decide to raise a new queen instead of raising an ordinary working bee.

Now I but this special larva to the nursing colony

I want to get 51 new queens from you!

Please take good care of them, my bees.

The nursing colony is under stress,

manipulated by the beekeeper.

Not having a queen yet, not having any breed yet.

The colony urgently need a new queen,

Else the colony dies.

Actually they just need one queen.

But in their misery they raise all the 51 queens.

The first queen to hatch out would kill all the 50 others queens.

One colony can only have one queen.

Therefore the developing queens have to be harvested in time

to be distributed and separated each to a small colony to hatch out

Here you can see a queen moving her legs. She will hatch out in a few hours.

So I put her here to this small group of bees.

After sex with the queen the drone dies.

Coming back from the maiden flight, the queen has received five million sperms.

This will last for eight years.

As soon as the queen starts laying eggs we take her out. Now we can sell her.

This is a permanent marker.

Each year we use another colour.

With the marker, the queen can be found easily in the hive,

and we can know how old she is.

The queen will be send to any place in the world.

We send her in this little box, together with a few working bees.

They form a small colony already.

Now we apply a bit of smoke.

The queen is still smelly from the marker,

therefore we use a bit of water, too.

Now they clean each other, and now they accept her as the new queen.

So, that's another 60 Euro. - Thank you.

Singer queens are sold worldwide,

either in a little box, or else in a bigger box.

This one goes to Innsbruck.

Should arrive by tomorrow.

European settlers brought the honey bee to the USA.

The settlers cultivated the land with fruits and vegetables.

Therefore they needed the bees.

Continuously new breeds are being imported to the USA.

I am a migrant beekeeper.

In practice this means we go where the bees have the most opportunities to fly.

That takes us across America

In the course of a year we go from California, where the almonds and the cherries begin the season

in early spring, in February.

We then go to Washington State for apple, apricot and cherry pollination

in late March and April.

We move the entire outfit to North Dakota for summer.

All the bees go for honey production in the summer.

By October first we begun to close the circle

moving the colonies back west before Winter.

So the course of a year is one big circle.

From California to North Dakota its 1700 miles.

We try to transport the bees in two days

and spend one night on the road.

The less time the bees spend on the truck the healthier they will be.

The bees can't fly outside their hive when we are trucking them and cannot go to the bathroom.

The longer they have to stay inside their box, in all their dirt

the unhealthier they will be. It's stressful.

It's not natural for the bees to be on the truck.

The sooner we get them of the truck, the better it's going to be.

The resting stops are short

Without the wind from driving, it's getting to hot inside the boxes.

On the big fields 1.5 million bee colonies are mingling,

which is two third of all the bees of the States.

There they also transfer diseases and parasites among each other.

Like this a disease can spread around the country very fast.

Nosemo is an intestinal parasite killing the bee from within.

Wax maggots can destroy a hive.

Another parasite kills larva.

The most dangerous parasite of all is a mite with the name Varroa destructor.

This mite breeds inside the bee hive.

Young mites attack the larva, and even attack the bees.

They can bite through the carapace of the bee,

and suck their fluids.

Where they bite the bees, viral infections can occur.

The bees will lose their wings.

There is very few bees here. This is trouble.

So let's have a look.

There are no bees.

This is what we don't like.

Classic colony collapse disorder.

A queen ...

Twenty friends ...

and nothing else.

This is a total loss. And we don't know why.

Just ...

just gone!

Plenty of pollen.

Plenty of nectar.

No evidence of brood.

I am getting real comfortable with death on an epic scale.

I don't like it.

I doesn't burn and it doesn't sting like it used to.

You know, it used to "oh good it's like a death in the family".

And now it's just something we have got to fix. It's just ...

You know, I got to fix it.

I don't have time to take it personally. I know this hive didn't mean to die.

I don't know why it died. But I can't fix it. I just got to move on.

I can't mourn the loss of this hive. It's just part of the game.

We have got 365 out of 456.

456? - 456 end up.

It's 20%.

That's our worst load. - Yea, the worst so far.

But the ones that are here are ok.

Hopefully the next are better.

90 dugs.

I am backed into a corner. And I fight back with what I have:

Chemicals.

After the stressful journey the bees are fed with sugar water.

Mixed with antibiotics.

Everywhere in Europe, North America and China nowadays bees can't survive anymore without medicines.

Ok. Let's start the program.

This yellow neuron not only tells the message "reward".

It also contains the information: "it was good".

There are other neuron responsible for fear, or defence.

The 50'000 little brains are in a network together forming a super organism.

A huge family with 50'000 family members.

Each family member carries out his duties.

No one is in command. Everyone works.

Even the larva form a part of this information network.

Each tentacle of the bees contains about 60'000 aroma sensors.

Sensing the aromas around, the bees know everything what's going on in the hive.

Even their legs contain aroma sensors.

Like this they know everything like: "Where is the queen" or "are there enough eggs" or "are there enough reserves".

Without a colony a single bee cannot survive.

She gives up her individual freedom for the wellbeing of the colony.

Each day about 2000 bees die, and about 2000 new-born bees hatch out.

The interesting question is: Is the colony a regulated system ?

The answer is: yes, the colony as a whole can have its own feelings

When swarming one colony can duplicate into two colonies

In industrial beekeeping this process is manipulated to make four colonies out of one.

Like this the beekeeper can compensate the dead colonies.

Brood.

Honey.

Eggs.

Everybody needs somebody that they can talk to.

Someone to open up their ears and let that trouble through.

Now you don't have to sympathize or care what they may do

But everybody needs somebody that they can talk to

Each colony gets split

Brood, honey, and eggs get separated to different boxes like spare parts.

Mixed with other colonies.

Most of the queens do not survive this process.

New queens are delivered by FEDEX.

Things have changed rapidly. We don't keep bees the way my dad did.

My grandfather would probably walk away from this property. Disturbed.

If he saw the way we keep bees today.

He'd think: "My God, you have lost your soul,

the husbandry of the hive and the care and the compassion in the keeping of the hive."

He'd say we have sacrificed our relationship with the colony.

But it was probably easier to maintain that relationship with the hive.

He was probably running 1500 hives.

We are running ten times that. We have 10x the employees,

we have 10x the property, we have 10x of square foot of plants and equipment.

We have 10x the trucks, 10x the power, 10x the cost.

The colony with the black rural breed made a new queen without the yellow tail.

On her maiden flight the queen did not leave the narrow valley

So the colony is a true bred rural breed.

At first sight it looks ok.

But there is not much brood.

Oh no, Fred.

What do you see?

Doesn't look good.

Look here, that's typical, very extreme.

This is a typical foulbrood disease.

Let's hope it is the only one.

Unfortunately this colony is also ill.

I don't like what I see.

The bees did not clean the hive anymore.

It's a bad sign when the bees stop cleaning. - Shit! Dammed!

Do you see it?

This colony is lost, Fred.

I can be smelled. - Once you can smell it, it's very bad already.

Should we start using the sulphur gas already?

Where does foulbrood come from? - It is a bacterial disease. Very contagious.

Maybe other drones brought it to the hive.

I feel very sorry for you.

We drive by car to the south, to the province Shanxi.

The drive is 2000 km long.

It takes two days. Two drivers take turns.

It is really a long drive.

When arrived in the South,

we rent there a big storage room, where we dry the pollen of the flowers.

When the apply bloom begins, we buy the apple flowers from the farmers.

Then we start to process the flowers.

We also transport a fridge in our car.

Driving back North

we use local electricity for the fridge when we make a rest.

With the fridge we keep the pollen fertile.

As soon the apple trees start blooming here in the North,

we sell the pollen to the local farmers.

Mao Tse Tung wanted to get rid of all the sparrows.

He said the sparrows steal the crop from the people.

Billions of sparrows were eliminated.

As a result there were lots and lots of insects and bugs.

The insects were then killed using pesticides.

Also the bees died.

Is 50 gram enough? This year there was not so much pollen.

That's all I'm having now.

When I have sold them I will contact you again.

I take 4 Yuan per gram, you can sell it for 5 Yuan.

One package, 50 lots, please count.

You can give me the money, when you have it.

For sure you can sell them easily. - 15, 16, 17, ...

Einstein said when the bees die

four years later also the humans die.

I travel in time to the future:

amazingly in China there are regions without bees.

Only reluctantly I am allowed to film.

At a University in Beijing people study the question

who is the better pollinator? Humans or bees.

But the result of the researchers is clear: bees are the better pollinators.

Here is what we have worked for all summer long.

We see this abundance of honey.

Beautiful summer honey.

Off.

This is mine.

They don't like sharing too much.

My thought was, taste it.

Yea, that's good. That's real good, that's straight out from the hive.

It's traumatic. It's hard on them. They don't understand it.

'Cause they have been flying in the fields for months undisturbed,

and now suddenly someone came and put the smoke in their face,

and put the boxes off strip their comb bars,

and handle them roughly,

and now the lids are back on them and the hive is a lot smaller than it used to be.

In the three to four weeks of her life

a bee can produce about one teaspoon of honey.

For 1 kg of honey the total flying distance of a bee is about 3x around the globe.

Any chemicals the bee filters out into her own body.

They sacrifice themselves for the offspring.

The larva should only eat clean honey.

But there stay some leftovers of pesticides.

To replace the bees here, it would need many Chinese farmers.

For this abundance of almonds four billions of bees had to work for 1 month.

Even a vegetarian person is dependent on industrialized beekeeping.

I am still searching a cause for the worldwide dying of bees.

In the bible there is written: People, go to the world and be prosperous!

There might lay the cause for the problems of the bees.

They don't die from just pesticides, parasites, or antibiotics, incest or stress.

It is the sum of all these problems, which is too much for the bees.

The bees are dying because of the dominance of human civilization.

Humans transformed wild bees into harmless domesticated bees.

But why the bees are putting up with it. Don't they want to fight back?

For this movie we travelled a lot.

The narrator tells a story from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The Red Queen's race is an incident where the Red Queen,

and Alice constantly running but remaining in the same spot.

"Well, in our country," said Alice, "you'd generally get to somewhere else

if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen.

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

One of the first persons to come to the scene the Lakeville fire fighter chief

couldn't figure out why there was a cloud around the accident, while there was nothing on fire.

There was a black haze around the whole scene. I have never seen quite anything like that.

He didn't know he drove right into a swarm of bees

Stung in the face a few times

immediately he ordered his crews to wear full gears for protection.

14 people have died in the US since 2004

after being attacked by swarms of killer bees.

Killer bees first escaped from a Brazilian breeding expert.

then migrated through Central America and Mexico.

Along the way getting a deadly reputation allegedly killing hundreds of people.

Killer bees are a cross-breeding from European and African bees.

Their correct name is Africanized honey bee.

26 swarms could escape from a laboratory in Sao Paolo.

Is this the time where the bees finally start fighting back?

I came to get your bees.

We have to take off the stuff here.

I will get a suit, right? - Yea, you get a suit.

Fred, you are my friend!

In 1992 a local minister called me to his home.

He said, I want you to get my bees,

because his neighbour had put in an exercise ring for horses.

The bees on his property were stinging the horses, and the people on the horses,

because the horses were making a lot of noise and vibrating the earth,

and of course bees don't like that.

I went over dressed like this, with no protection, just a short-sleeve shirt,

because I was used working with the European bees,

and I thought this won't be a big problem.

I went over there, and of course it was a problem.

The bees were much more ferocious than any bees I have ever seen previously.

I was not sure exactly what they were,

I thought, I just find the queens and put in nice new queens,

because these bees were just too mean.

I put in a nice queen

and the bees killed her immediately, and then raise their own queens.

It's always a good idea to pee first.

Before we get the bees excited.

So if you need to go, now it's the time.

No, I am pretty good. - You are pretty good? - Yea, I think so.

Ready Fred? - Ready!

Be careful.

A beautiful nest.

Perfect rows. Filled with cavities.

Rebo, these are your killer bees.

The honey flows.

This row is fresh.

The stuff further back are brood combs? - Yea.

Look at it!

It's beautiful.

Looks good, even in the bucket.

You know, Rebo, when we lived in Tucson, 15 years ago,

it probably would have cost you 1000$, to take this out.

At that time I had parasitic mites.

So I thought, these really vicious hives, I won't treat them with chemicals,

and so the mites will kill them.

The mites did not kill them.

These hives thrived with now treatment,

whereas my gently treated hives did not do very well at all.

So I began to think, maybe there is something to these bees.

At that time I was thinking, maybe these bees were African bees.

I didn't tell anyone,

because I was afraid of what might happen if I did.

It's a nice brood. - Yea, in the yellow combs.

Where is our box?

Now I see, what the string is for.

That's what the bears are getting the hive for.

Not looking for the honey, but looking for the brood.

Here we go.

For your hive? - Yea.

The queen will be somewhere here.

Lid on.

It's quite a bit heavier than just the honey.

It's amazing how much a few bees weigh.

Let's put it on the edge here.

I want to make sure ... - You are looking on the bottom?

Are there any bees on the bottom? - Not many.

I think we are in good shape.

All American are always afraid of being invaded.

If not by illegal immigrants then by killer bees.

I do have to wear a bee suit now.

I do have to have to work my bees much more carefully.

But it's easily worth it. I do know that they make more honey,

and they make honey that doesn't have any chemicals in it.

That means an awful lot to me.

Looking good! Lots of drones.

The honey bees are not native in Australia.

They arrived with the first settlers.

And over time some of them escaped. And they got established.

Honey bees can't survive without human help.

This is different from Europe, China, or North America.

If we collect males, that's what is Rodolfo doing up there at the moment,

we can basically study the queen genes,

because the drones a clone variants of the queen.

I always refer to our feral bees in Australia as a big bank account,

with no money on it, but genetic variations of genes.

With the work which we do here at the moment we try to withdraw some of our assets,

and use them for future bee breeding.

Well done! Can we have a look. - Yea.

Look at this. It's really nice.

They are very lively.

My family still is interested in bees.

Nowadays my nephews are fascinated by them.

Will there still be bees around, when they themselves are going to be grandfathers?

My daughter and my son-in-law are studying bees at the university of Western Australia in Perth.

They are studying the immune system of bees.

When I arrived, I had to burn my bee suit. There might have been germs in it from my travels.

In Australia the last healthy bees of the world are living.

A continent without Varroa mites.

You can touch them. They are male drones. They cannot bite.

Is this Mother bee? - No, this is farther bee.

Queens of honey bees are being artificially cross-inseminated here with Australian wild feral bees.

To avoid a risky incident like the one in Brazil, the cross-breed bees are brought to a small island.

There they will have to survive a stress test.

If they survive there will be further breeding.

For the world market.

If there will emerge new killer bees, they can do no harm on this lonely island.

On the other hand if all the mainland bees die of diseases in future,

these healthy bees on the lonely island will be very useful for us humans.

We think the genetic diversity among these island bees is crucial.

We should not try to concentrate on one special breed only

and loose genetic diversity by this,

instead we try to bring in new genes into this island bee population.

Killer bees certainly have a superior immunity system,

but they are as dangerous as wolves, which is not acceptable.

We humans want to live together with the bee.

Thus we have to look for

a compromise between killer bees

and domesticated honey bees.

We seem to be afraid of foreigners coming into the country,

even though we are all immigrants here.

The African bees came, they didn't have papers

they didn't have permission, nor visa nor passports.

There was nothing we could do to stop theses wild creatures.

They have not been domesticated, they are as they have always been.

And people were very frightened.

When I went to Brazil in 1995,

I found that the country had completely embraced the African bee.

That what we have been told about the African bee,

that they didn't make honey, that they were not good pollinators,

that they were impossible to manage,

I found that all those things were completely false.

They can survive on very scarce resources.

If I were a gambling person,

I would bet on the survival of the African bee over just about any other species.

I think they will be here after we are gone.

The bees that I took out from the roof did not like their new nest

so they left, they swarmed.

They will find a limb on a tree or something

where they can cluster to take care of the queen.

From that cluster the bees will send out scout bees to look for a suitable nest site.

If a scout bee finds a suitable nest site,

she will come back to this cluster of bees

and she will tell her nest mates about her very good site.

When they reach a consensus

then they will all leave together.

Not even a bear could get to those bees.

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