Royal Jelly

*CURRENTLY IN PRODUCTION*

This is an age-old story of honey bees, hives and beekeepers.

Bees are vital for agriculture, pollinating approximately 80% of flowering crops and a third of the food consumed, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, and oilseeds.

And the honey bees make lots of honey – so there’s that.

Honey is created from the nectar bees get from flowers. At the hive the nectar’s sugar becomes concentrated through water evaporation and enzymatic actions. “Royal Jelly” is secreted from the glands of worker bees and eaten by queen bee larvae.

If kept properly, honey can last forever.

Beekeepers are concerned because honey bee colonies in the United States have recently declined at an alarming rate. Is it the Varroa destructor mite, viruses, insecticides, or something else?

We visit with Associate Professor and director of Auburn Bee Center Geoffrey Williams and his team to discuss bee health and the future of bee management.

We venture to Normal, Alabama and examine early 20th century beekeeping at Tuskegee University.

Margaret Murray Washington, wife of university founder and president Booker T. Washington, taught beekeeping and started a group of "beekeeping ladies."

Master Beekeeper and Foxhound Bee Company owner Adam Hickman in Birmingham, Alabama is a distributor of queen bees and provides beekeeping supplies and education about beekeeping.

The company created a special place in Irondale, Alabama designed to support beekeepers and those who aspire to be beekeepers.

We explore Alabama’s back country fields and prairies with conservationist and social media influencer Kyle Lybarger in search of ancient native flowers and grasses that thrive in undisturbed land and feed the bees and other pollinators.

We trek the two-lanes, dirt roads and freeways to visit local beekeepers, farmers, researchers, agricultural experts and the bee and honey loving people across the South.

The ancient honey bee remains vital to the American landscape.

Farmer-beekeeper Mike Keller of Southern Sweet Bee in Hope Hull, Alabama
previously worked for M.C. Berry, once one of the largest beekeepers and queen bee distributors in North America. Mike and fellow Master Beekeeper Richard Woodham demonstrate the grafting of queen bees for inserting into a hive. Queens and her brood are fed Royal Jelly, a “super-charged” bee concoction that can transform a worker bee into a longer-living reproductive queen.

We watch as beekeepers subdue bees with whiffs of smoke and gently raid hives. The honey combs are removed and placed in a centrifuge where they will be spun and honey extracted. The pure honey is then filtered and readied for distribution. The hive's bees wax is used to make candles and other products.