Masters of Bees

In New Zealand, beekeepers roam hundreds of thousands of acres daily to tend to their bees scattered across community and sacred lands.

The Baka pygmies are expert hunter-gatherers, famous for harvesting the honey of wild bees in the forest canopy. The opportunities for building natural nests there are so numerous that it is mere illusion to imagine domesticating the bees' activity in such an environment. So, the Baka must employ a highly-developed range of skills and knowledge to overcome the cunning of the bees.

In the 70s and 80s, the Sicilian bee came close to total extinction, avoided thanks to the colossal effort and devouring passion of the beekeeper, Carlo Amodeo. Today, the master of Sicilian bees owns more than 1800 hives, spread across the Aeolian Islands to the north-east of Sicily, which are now the sole sanctuaries for those that he calls his "empresses".

Around 13,000 years ago, the bees that had settled in Northern Europe were driven out by the cold. In the Cevennes, whose valleys form a natural rampart, colonies of pure stock managed to subsist, by adapting to the environment. Men and women have returned to ancestral traditions in order to protect them...

Every year, in the south-west of India, hunter-gatherers await the arrival of the migratory bee: apis dorsata, the most aggressive in the world. As participants in this dangerous harvest become increasingly rare, the tribes have set themselves the mission of training their sons and nephews in order to assure the survival of their families and prevent this centuries-old tradition from dying out.

Slovenia is internationally recognized for the quality of its honey. However, its bond with the bee goes far beyond the simple nectar. Beekeepers are fighting daily to preserve the purity of the local species of bees, the Carniolian bee.

In the north of Argentina, people are fighting a daily battle to protect the bee, confronted with disturbing changes that have been observed for almost fifty years and have recently intensified.

In Nepal, gathering honey is a dangerous task. Every year when the migratory bee, Apis Dorsata, arrives in their lands, some chosen few set out to confront the void to harvest the bitter honey of this giant bee. Expeditions last several days allow the proud elect to reduce the number of accidents caused by the stings of the Apis Dorsata, the most dangerous bees in the world.

In Ethiopia, bees are much more than a simple symbol of fertility and abundance. They serve the faith of this second most ancient Christian nation.

In Mexico, bees give so much that they are the world leaders in the production of honey. They inspire respect and admiration...

In the home of the Lazes in Turkey, the climate has encouraged the growth of a dense and varied vegetation, offering ideal conditions for bees. But they are not the only beneficiaries: major predators, lovers of honey, are also numerous.

In the home of the Yaaku in Kenya, humans have had to adapt to the ingenuity of the many honey thieves to protect the nectar and sometimes even team up with certain predators in order to harvest it.

In the chilling cold of the Urals in Russia, men ride their horses into the forest to reach the giant trees in which they will have to climb, risking their lives to harvest the nectar of wild bees.

In the sticky heat of Borneo in Indonesia, the honey trees where the wild bees hive stand at over 100', and harvesting the precious nectar is always a matter of life and death.