Ethnology meets the Saharan bee and the South Moroccan beekeepers
September 2010
GMO, pesticides, Asian predatory wasps are the reasons internationally evoked today to explain the progressive extinction of the bee population. Nevertheless, doesn't the evocation of these great scourges hide another social or cultural reason, that of the loss of the traditional diversity of know-how regarding beekeeping?
Indeed, by losing the diversity of these traditional hives, slowly replaced by industrial standards, man has lost the richness of beekeeping know-how and the knowledge on bees.
On the tracks of the ethnological research led by Romain Simenel in the Sidi Ifni region, this documentary shows the richness of Berber-speaking tribes' beekeeping know-how. As the industrial honey production floods these pre-Saharan regions and threatens the survival of the Saharan bee and the life of local hives, the documentary depicts how, behind the religious speech on the Italian bee, a whole series of know-how on honey production, learned from the earliest years, is hiding.
Shooting : Luc Markiw
Translation : Anne-Catherine Gandrillon
