Where the Bee Sucks
A film about bees and bee keeping by adrin neatrour
Where the Bee Sucks is a 50 min film that looks at the year long cycle of bee keeping from the point of view of Ralph, the bee keeper.
I have made a number of films about people and their work, looking at those working lives that require the commitment of body and mind to physical engagement and observation. What interests me is that although my subjects are certainly marked by individuality, the work they do absorbs them (and I've worked with a cobbler, a miner, a slaughterer, a fisher, scientists, a doctor etc.), concentrating within them the qualities needed to do what they do. To an extent a life spent in this type of work develops practitioners who come to take on the form of archetypes, a type of collective identity. Anyway this is my way of thinking.
I met Ralph by chance at my local street party to which he'd been invited by his son Seymour who was one of my neighbours. As we talked he told me he was a bee keeper of many years standing; I was immediately very interested. Bee keeping was on a list of subjects that I'd thought about filming, falling into my generic area of interest relating to people and their work. I quickly explained myself and Ralph was immediately helpful (of course that is his nature) and invited me to visit, see his bees and himself at the hives, have a cup of tea and decide on the viability of making a film.
To decide to film was a very quick easy decision. Watching Ralph's engagement with the little creatures was wonderful. He didn't wear the anonymous full protective white kit with hood and vizor, just a simple smock and face veil. Ralph's voice was as harmonious as the buzzing of the bees, his explanations replete but simple, and he was endowed with a natural grace. He would be the guide to the way of the bees.
From what I knew, and which was confirmed by Ralph, bee keeping is cyclical. The tasks cares and concerns of the apiarist move with the seasons. Winter Spring Summer Autumn all make their own particular claims in relation to the care of the bees, management of their hives and understanding how to best encourage them to make the honey.
Snow on the ground I started filming in Winter and we continued until the onset of the next Winter. It was very easy working with Ralph. I did most of the camera work but whatever mistakes I made that necessitated re-filming or re-setting (not always possible given some of the more difficult situations you can encounter being close to bees) Ralph was ever patient and obliging, as for the most part were the bees. And the bees! I can only say it was a pleasure to be able to spend time close up to them with the time and opportunity to observe their behaviour in the hives about the hives in the swarm and at the end to taste the honey.
I was well served by Robert Hargreaves as editor of ‘Where the Bee Sucks'; he understood how to keep the material focused. From the start of the project I envisaged a film that had a classical timeless element, this directed me to Shakespeare's The Tempest, to use Ariel's text set to Thomas Arne's music, and taking the song's title, 'Where the Bee Sucks…' for my film.