Blood Honey honey bees
You’ve probably known some weird beekeeping families – maybe you’re lucky enough to live in one. But someone out there is a member of the world’s creepiest beekeeping family. If you want to know more about the worst of the worst, there’s a movie. It’s not exactly a documentary, but a full-length horror story. A B-movie thriller flick. Here’s the trailer. But (Trigger Warning!) this film clip contains bees, blood, honey, and some incredibly awful beekeeping.
Blood Honey has it all – death, ketchup-blood, and honey bees. My favourite line from the trailer (“Honey is the only part of the business that still makes a profit.”) tells you how poorly informed this movie is – there’s really not much money in bees. The movie’s bee farm is in Canada’s Precambrian shield, a place where (in real life) bees make no honey at all. The other part of the business referred to in the quote is an isolated hunting lodge where jackfish virtually leap into a fisherman’s net. If you want to make money in the north, run a fishing lodge, not a honey farm. But the writers decided to focus on bees, not fish. I’m guessing that’s because bees are trendy this year.
Among the goofy beekeeping and erstwhile wisdom in this otherwise awful movie, we get to see a beekeeper commit suicide by taking off his veil and kicking a hive, we learn that bees in the far north make toxic honey, and (as the protagonist discovers) you really can’t go home again.
I’m a poor judge of popular culture, so this may actually be a great film. Canadian actress Shenae Grimes-Beech is a strong and capable lead. So, perhaps the movie will sell out in theatres everywhere, but I doubt it. Sorry, folks, but I can’t give this film anything higher than two out of ten bees. 🐝 🐝
Bad Beekeeping Blog 
Pingback: World’s Weirdest Beekeeping Family | Raising Honey Bees
Poor bees—more bad portrayals courtesy of hysterical humans! This looks cheesy all ’round
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: World’s Weirdest Beekeeping Family | Beginner Beekeeper
I didn’t know about this movie. If you don’t mind I would like to steal your idea and post a review on my blog 🙂
Have a nice day!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absolutely! Write a review – people are always curious about B-movies!
LikeLike
Give me some of that there toxic honey. It’s delicious!
As to the ability to make money with bees in the far north, check out Dr. Carlson & family’s Heavenly Honey.
LikeLike
As you suggested, I checked out “Dr Carlson and family’s Heavenly Honey” but it looks like they are in the city of Ottawa. Not exactly ‘far north’, is it?
To clarify my post, I am referring to the Precambrian shield’s geographic setting, not the latitude, as being primarily responsible for the lack of honey in the area where the movie is set. I should have been more explicit. It’s not just ‘northerliness’. Western Canada’s Peace River area produces enormous honey crops (usually over 200 pounds a year and sometimes 300 pounds per hive) and the area is 1,200 kilometres farther north than Ottawa. And, of course, there are successful beekeepers in the Yukon! Ottawa, by such standards, is not so far north.
This weird B-movie seems to take place in the rocky ancient shield region – a veritable desert for bees, as compared to a place like rich agricultural farmland of the Peace region.
LikeLike