The world looks different when seen from the ‘bees-eye view.’ The new National Geographic documentary series, Secrets of the Bees, offers viewers a look into the hidden world of bees, revealing the intricate details and social structure of a honeybee hive. Backed by Academy Award-winning director James Cameron, the docuseries is hosted by award-winning wildlife filmmaker and explorer Bertie Gregory.
On Secrets of the Bees
Ahead of the docuseries’ release, HT attended a press conference where James Cameron spoke about the show with entomologist and fellow National Geographic explorer Dr Samuel Ramsey.
Talking about his association with the show and whether the experience has had any influence on him as a person, James said, “I don’t appear in the film, although I’m helping to promote the show. So, I do it for my own interests, my own curiosity. The Secrets series has been incredibly revelatory to me about the behaviour of whales and octopus and various species that I thought I knew about, and I’ve found a lot more detail.”
The director continues, “Bees, I don’t profess to know a lot about, but I’ve certainly had a lot of amazing facts revealed some of the things that we were talking about earlier, the gender difference in honeybees and a lot of bee species, in terms of the size of the eyes, because the male generally, I think in most cases mates once and usually dies afterwards. And so they have very large eyes, about twice the size of the female’s, because they want to get it right. They want to make sure that they get the right lady, you know, and they- and they- they mate mid-air, and then their life is over. So yeah, you want to get that one right. And so they have eyes that are, I’m assuming they have more cells in the retina.”
Does a bee culture exist?
The documentary also focuses on and tells the revelatory ways in which bees function as a collective. The hive of bees hides a secret community in the way they adapt and work together in harmony, akin to a culture that is very much like human civilisation. James Cameron wonders if that can be called a sort of ‘bee culture’ as well.
“There’s so much that I didn’t know about a bee society, and learning about bee culture as well, meaning that which is passed in direct communication between individual bees. I certainly was of the belief that bees were basically little Roombas that were hardwired with relatively basic programming, but it turns out that while they have that as we all do, they’re also capable of learning, and they’re able to learn specific tasks and have things demonstrated for them which they can then replicate. And we call that culture, right? So that’s an amazing thing, to think of bee culture,” he says.
He concludes by saying, “That’s just one example. I mean, there are certainly many examples that I’ve learned as a result of being, you know, a producer on the series, and that’s what attracts me to doing Secrets of shows for National Geographic, is that I always learn something. I mean, they pay me, but frankly, I’d pay them (smiles).”
