The European dark bee was perfectly adapted to the flora and climatic conditions of central Europe and for centuries provided us with honey. But in the 1970s, it disappeared from many countries. The film takes the viewer on an intriguing journey, with unprecedented insights into the life of a wild bee colony. It reveals how the ancestral wild honey bee once survived in our forests before early beekeepers began transforming it into the world’s smallest domesticated animal.
A forest creature, perfectly evolved to function in a niche within the forest ecosystem, the European dark bee is mostly dependent on woodpeckers and their nests. A wide range of other forest animals benefit from the bee’s presence. They fight against wasps and predatory butterflies and pollinate millions of flowers, but the bees fall victim to a wide range of predators. They have a key role in the ecology of our forests, and yet they almost disappeared forever from the forests of Central Europe.
Bee Wild ! shows how wild honey bees survived in our forests for millennia without help or interference from beekeepers, and how their lives are closely connected to birds, bats, insects, trees, flowering plants, and many other organisms. Award- winning filmmaker, Jan Haft, introduces us to an extraordinary animal and shows us how we could benefit if we once again made more space for wild honey bees in our forests.
