Killer Bees of Africa Natural World

Beneath the starry skies of the African savannah

is the perfect place to begin our story.

A tiny queen is about to commence her rule.

The army she'll command will unleash terror...

..as she'll face foes a million times her size.

She'll defend the most precious stores of gold

against enemies that wield fire.

This drama will play out under the mighty peak of Mount Kenya...

..and it will end in the twisted forests in its shadow.

So how does a queen of such tiny proportions

rule in a land made for giants?

The hot, dry plains are the stage for the beginning of this tale

where, hidden deep inside an ancient acacia tree,

a strange stirring is under way.

This is a wild nest of African honeybees...

..and they are desperate for a new queen.

The old queen has been dead for 12 days.

If she's not replaced, the colony will not survive.

Inside these enlarged cells, their future has been forming.

Tonight, their destiny will be decided.

The worker bees have prepared five queen cells.

But there can only be one ruler here.

The first jaws start to slice through the wax cell

and a tongue savours the air.

This aspiring leader can taste victory.

But in the next cell, a royal head has already emerged.

Now two princesses have the chance to be queen.

Which one will be triumphant?

It takes some minutes for the two young sovereigns

to get their bearings in the nest.

As soon as they're ready,

their first task will be to fight to the death.

The queens don't look much different to the workers...

..but they have a pheromone strong enough to command every bee on the combs.

They'll use these pheromones to seek each other out.

One of them is about to die.

One queen is dead.

Her adult life lasted barely an hour.

Her sister now rules victorious.

Mount Kenya commands the climate here

and our queen bee is born into the African plains in its shadow.

It's a harsh landscape.

To live here, the new queen honeybee

and her colony need all their instincts and luck.

The weather is everyone's greatest enemy.

Within a month, the dry season will begin

and everything alive will suffer.

Those that can will move

and the bees can travel huge distances.

But first they must build strength for the journey,

whilst conditions are good.

The new queen does not have time on her side.

GROWLING

But the tiny honeybee is not the only queen on the plains.

The largest creatures on the savannahs are also led by a female.

THEY TRUMPET

They're not afraid to throw their weight around.

Elephants rule their land with brute strength.

But even they can't fight the extreme weather.

On the savannah, their food will run out.

But if they can reach them,

the mountain forests could also provide a refuge.

The tiny honeybee and the giant elephant

are such different creatures,

but they're driven by the same forces

and their paths will cross.

The new queen honeybee has fought her sister and won her crown,

but the other queen cells need dealing with before they hatch.

Dispatched with a sting.

The queen is the only bee to have a sting that can be used repeatedly.

Its sole purpose is to kill her sisters.

The housekeeper bees toss out the bodies of the young they nurtured.

They are now obsessed with their one true queen.

There is no doubt over her absolute rule.

And now the pressure is on.

Her colony needs to grow big and strong

so when the time comes, they can survive the long journey.

They can't afford any interruptions.

THUDDING FOOTSTEPS

The elephants are coming closer...

..led by their powerful matriarch.

She wasn't born into her title. She earned it.

She's 60 years old and it's her incredible memory

that leads the elephants through the difficult landscape to find food.

The matriarch guides them to the best pickings.

Her family rely on her judgment.

They must eat as much as they can whilst times are still good.

And the elephants will stop at nothing to reach

the most nutritious leaves of acacia.

But their habit of knocking over acacia trees could prove fatal

for the queen honeybee, as her home is deep inside one.

The matriarch leads the elephants closer to the queen's tree.

How will the bees cope with the power of the mighty elephant?

But guard honeybees are programmed to die in defence of their leader.

Even against an enemy of such epic proportions.

They might have skins tougher than leather,

but tender ears and trunks are their weak points.

SHE TRUMPETS

And their babies are vulnerable.

The bees return triumphant.

Seeing off the thunderous elephant is no big deal for the queen's warriors.

The queen herself was never in any danger.

The bees are the true rulers of the plains.

Their mission to grow strong is unhindered...this time.

Deep inside the nest,

the young bees are tending their stores of honey and pollen.

Unlike the elephant matriarch,

the queen bee doesn't interfere with the day-to-day running of the hive.

The workers have it all under control.

It's only the very oldest bees that are sent out to forage.

It's the hardest job in the colony.

They navigate using the sun

and fly up to three miles from the nest to find flowers.

Heavy with either pollen or nectar,

the foragers drop off their load with the housekeeper bees.

The successful foragers show others where to find the flowers

using the waggle dance.

Each shake and turn explains detailed distance and direction.

The bees forage with efficiency.

And as 10,000 workers are out gathering nectar at any one time,

the queen's honey store is growing at a tremendous rate.

The bees are on track.

Being out in the open alone is vulnerable,

as the foragers don't have the strength of the army to back them up.

But they have no choice...

..even when their nemesis is in the air.

The bee-eater.

Once the bee-eater knows the location of the nest,

it'll never leave it.

A constant thorn in the honeybees' side.

The queen must replace these fallen soldiers with urgency.

They feed the whole colony.

If the supply line is shut down, it will collapse within days.

But as she matures, she's reaching her egg-laying prime.

Her body is out of her control.

She lays almost an egg a second.

Every day, thousands of worker bees are hatching.

Throughout the day and night,

they chew the wax caps off their cells...

..and struggle free.

For the first time they can see, feel and smell the other bees.

They're instantly bound to the nest by the queen's pheromones.

And their life of hard labour begins.

Their first job is to clean and house-keep.

Then, at three days old, a special gland inside their head develops.

It produces royal jelly, the most magical substance in the hive.

The queen is fed on royal jelly.

It's the key to her power.

And it's what enables the nest to replenish itself by the thousand.

The queen might be laying all the eggs,

but it's the nursemaid workers that feed them.

All newborn larvae are given a dose of royal jelly

and then are fed on honey and pollen.

Each baby is fed 2,000 times by the nursemaids...

..who even control the temperature for the young.

They need to be at a constant 35 degrees.

Outside on the savannah, it feels like someone has turned up the heat.

Soon the cool forests of Mount Kenya will be calling.

This old matriarch has made the journey there

every year since she was born.

She knows the way and can lead her family with confidence.

But the bees' life cycle is so short,

not one of them alive today has made the journey before.

To get the queen there safely will be down to instinct alone.

The foragers have done their job well

and their wealth has grown to over 20 kilos of golden honey.

They'll easily be strong enough for their migration.

For the bees, this hoard is the difference between life and death.

But their stash of riches needs all the power of the army to defend it...

..as there is a price for creating the sweetest natural substance on the savannah.

There are some that intend to steal it.

The queen has one enemy that her workers can't handle.

He's coming.

A Turkana tribesman, born and raised in wild country.

The bright flash of a bee-eater gives the colony away.

He hunts down their nest.

The honey hunter's secret weapon.

Wood from the Ereng bush.

It burns to make a smoke that drugs the bees.

They don't stand a chance.

The odd sting doesn't stop him.

Months of work...stolen.

It's carnage.

The queen has survived

but her home is destroyed.

Her chances of making it are slim.

Dripping honey will attract scavengers

and the bees' defences are down.

They must get out of the tree.

The bees know what to do.

They gather themselves...

..and prepare to swarm.

The bees must protect the queen at all costs.

As soon as they can, the swarm settles.

And the queen is safe, hidden within the cluster...for now.

The bees will need a lot of luck to get out of this one,

but luck is not on their side.

The bees have survived the night but it's dangerous out in the open.

They're vagrant and vulnerable...

..and the bee-eater has found them.

Their plans for migration have been thwarted.

Immediate survival is their only concern.

They need to find a new home within easy reach.

Scouts are sent out.

Not all will return.

The bees are so desperate they'll look anywhere.

A scout bee finds an empty box.

It's clean and a good size but it's man-made.

Getting involved with people could be a mistake,

but they're running out of options.

She makes it back to the cluster...

..and tells them the distance,

and even the quality of what she found,

using the twists and turns of the waggle dance.

Will the queen accept it?

She'd be wise, as the box is on the edge of a small farm,

full of flowering crops.

A welcome oasis in the arid landscape.

As one, the bees decide.

They form a cluster next to their new home...

..and descend into the hive.

The queen enters and completes the deal.

They're safe.

But they've arrived with nothing

and have a huge amount of work to rebuild their lives.

There's a farmer here that's pleased to see them.

Peter Ekerri's farm is special.

It's the only one in the area to have irrigation.

So there's water here, despite the dry season.

It's a lifeline for the queen.

It's up to the workers now to put her back on track.

She can't lay any eggs until they've built new combs

and there's nowhere to store provisions.

So every bee starts to excrete wax

and turns its hand to building.

They're fast workers and build a comb a day...

..until the food gathering can begin in earnest.

Then even the young bees are sent foraging.

Some bring back nectar to make honey,

others, pollen on their back legs to feed to the young larvae.

There are so many flowers that within just a week,

the queen once again has an empire to rule over.

And Peter's crops are pollinated.

A perfect partnership.

The bees chose Peter's farm well.

The irrigation meets all their needs...

..and they're closer to Mount Kenya.

If they can get strong enough before Peter's crops are finished,

they'll be able to continue their journey to the forest.

But the queen and her colony aren't alone.

Peter keeps over a hundred hives around his farm,

waiting for them to be filled with migrating swarms.

But he's not a honey merchant.

Peter has wired his hives together, each one connected.

If one is knocked, the whole row will swing, and the bees will go wild.

Out in the bush, the elephants are searching for food.

The dry season pushes them closer to the villages.

They won't hesitate to steal Peter's vegetables.

The matriarch has passed this way before.

She knows how to find them.

Last year the elephants ate everything...

..and his family went hungry.

But this year the beehive fence runs right around his farm.

Will it keep the elephants out of his crops?

Night falls and Peter sleeps fitfully.

Small antelope sneak under the beehive fence.

The bees aren't sleeping.

They build and house-keep throughout the night.

Other nocturnal creatures tiptoe through the fields.

An aardvark creeps quietly...

..and a scrub hare finds plenty to eat.

RUSTLING AND GROWLING

The elephants sniff the air.

They're completely blind in the pitch black.

They smell the crops...

..but they can also smell the queen and her colony.

It stops them in their tracks.

Around Peter's farm, there are more bees in one place

than they've ever encountered before.

TRUMPETING

TRUMPETING

TRUMPETING

The matriarch knows better than to disturb the bees.

She leads the herd away.

Not even a feast of vegetables could tempt them past.

The honeybees have done their job well

and Peter doesn't need to share his harvest this year.

But soon the harvest is over

and there is nothing more for the bees to eat here.

The cool forests of the high ground are calling.

Dewy mornings and delicate flowers are waiting for them.

This time, the bees can leave in a more organised fashion.

They have time to plan.

The queen is starved in preparation for the long flight

and they begin to eat their stores of honey.

The elephants have a head start.

They have survived the main road

and are already on their way across country.

They're getting closer to the mountain.

Peter's hive has gone quiet.

He would have liked the honey...

..but the bees have done their job and taken their leave.

They're finally on their way to their new home.

African honeybees are expert migrators.

Nothing can stop them now.

It's 20 miles away...

..over farmland and wild country.

The forests are made of black olive and cedar trees.

There's plenty of shelter to be found.

Their new home is high and safe.

Combs are built...

..and as fast as they're constructed,

foragers are sent out to the forest clearings.

Every dawn a carpet of purple flowers opens.

Nectar is gathered.

Life is good and peaceful.

They've made it.

But how long can the harmony last?

The elephants are here, too.

The old matriarch has pulled her family through.

But their stay here will only be brief.

When the rains return to the plains, she'll guide them back again...

..leading them all, old and young.

TRUMPETING

When the time comes, the bees ought to take their queen back too.

But she's not herself.

The colony has picked up a disease on their journey.

The queen is badly affected.

A louse steals the food from her mouth...

..and she's stopped laying eggs.

Her workers sense her power weakening.

Without her strong pheromones of fertility...

..the bees start to feed larvae extra royal jelly.

They're preparing more queens.

The old queen has come so far...

..but now she's useless to her colony.

They need a new slave to lay their eggs.

It's the worker bees who are in charge now.

When the new queen hatches,

our queen that has travelled so far and survived so much, will be killed.

After 12 days, a set of jaws begins to slice through the wax cell...

..and a new era dawns.