The Making of a Bee Documentary
I liked this post in the New York Times’ City Room Blog a few days ago (including the discussion!). Nobody should say that hyperlocal news do not deal with ALL the residents of the city! In it, CUNY J-School student Celia Gorman describes the attempts to rescue a feral bee colony whose nest had been [...]
Imker gelten landläufig nicht gerade als Speerspitze bei der Nutzung der moderner Kommunikationstechnologien – sehr zu Unrecht, wie man schnell feststellt, wenn man sich ein bisschen näher mit der Sache beschäftigt! Verena Hagelkruys zum Beispiel kenne ich nur online aus dem Bienenforum, wo sie als eine der Administratorinnen eine ziemlich lebendige Imker-Online-Community betreut. Verena ist [...]
The honeyhouse in Gackle is an industrious place. Lots of stainless steel, concrete floors and wirring machinery. But somehow you always know that it’s a bee-place…
It’s honey harvest and we made our way back to Gackle, North Dakota, right in the Prairie Pothole Region and the “duck-hunting-capital of the world”. We didn’t come for the hunting grounds, though. Or different ones. Although it was getting late in the year, the bees were still busy. They spent the summer spread out [...]
80% of the world’s almonds grow in California – and now is time for harvest. Thanks to the bees. The almond growers we talked to were positive: without honey bees commercial almond farming would be impossible. Do they like this dependency? Not much. There are attempts to breed self-pollinating almond trees and to switch to [...]
Once the hulls and shells have been removed, most of the almonds are shipped to handlers for further processing. They travel in special crates, about 2000 lbs (app. 1t) each, all over California.
Yes, there are mighty powers at work. Noisy, too. Very. Can this deter us? Or the almonds? We filmed at one of the large huller-sheller-vacilities in the Central Valley in California that are all fired up now that the almond harvest is in full swing. It’s a fascinating place. Everything is moving and rotating and [...]
A colleague just sent me his picture of the mystery-Bombus’ back end. Does this give anybody any new ideas? (click picture to enlarge)
OR: THIS THING CALLED VARIATION Although we are still in the middle of filming (and yes, I will post pictures from the last trip soon!), I get to spend quite some time fact-checking as well. (no way around it; might as well start early and try to crowdsource the hive…) Some of these fact-checks are [...]
