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Monday, November 14, 2011

Queen of the Sun - a Great Bee Movie

Last night Julia and I went to a screening of "Queen of the Sun" at a local food club meeting.  We took food - it was a potluck dinner - to a local bar that opened just for this meeting.  We had a great time talking to people there and watching this wonderful movie about the bees.



















My favorite character who was filmed was this beekeeper, who keeps his bees without a shirt and wearing a necklace.  His funniest moment was when he used his mustache to brush the bees.



















The movie was well-done, in support of natural beekeeping and there are many interesting versions of hives in the film, such as the one below.  There were also frames that were different sizes.

























As you can tell from the comb attachment in the frame above, most of the beekeepers in this movie practiced foundation-less beekeeping.

The movie was filmed all over the world, which adds a lot of interest.  My only regret is that most of the beekeepers interviewed except for one, who was shown without her bees, were men.  

4 comments:

  1. I'm sorry, but I disagree. The movie does indeed emphasize natural beekeeping. However, I felt that it portrayed beekeepers as a bunch of kooks. I am not a kook. Most of the beekeepers I know are not kooks. In recent years we've made strides to become more acceptable in urban and suburban areas. Portraying us as kooks is not conducive to that effort.

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  2. Julia and I viewed it with a roomful of non-beekeepers. While everyone found the shirtless guy funny, most were interested in the family that kept bees together and the man with the biodynamic farm in Ohio. Afterwards many of the viewers wanted to know from Julia and me how could they become beekeepers themselves - regulations in Georgia, etc. There were no reactions about it being a kooky business.

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  3. I viewed it with a room full of beekeepers, at one of our monthly beekeepers' association meetings. It was interesting, but not all that well received.

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  4. Anonymous11:47 PM

    Most of the beekeepers in our club also agreed that "Queen of the Sun" was kooky. "La Reine Malade" , a documentary of a beekeeper's year in the province of Quebec, was much more informative, and much better received. It was an entry in the Vancouver Film Festival here in B.C. If you get a chance to see it, it is well worth it. Has English subtitles. :)
    Axel Krause
    Vancouver, BC, Canada

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