An Extraordinary Glimpse into the First 21 Days of a Bee’s Life

The first 21 days of a bee’s life are captured in this inspiring video by photographer Anand Varma. Bees pollinate 1/3 of the world’s food crop but are being threatened by the Varroa destructor mite; Varma was hired to document the process. Scientists have learned to breed mite-resistant bees which they are now trying to introduce into the wild.

In an attempt to better understand exactly what happens as a bee grows from an egg into an adult insect, photographer Anand Varma teamed up with the bee lab at UC Davis to film the first three weeks of a bee’s life in unprecedented detail, all condensed into a 60-second clip. The video above presented by National Geographic doesn’t include commentary, but Varma explains everything in a TED talk. The primary goal in photographing the bees was to learn how they interact with an invasive parasitic mite that has quickly become the greatest threat to bee colonies.  

Source: thisiscolossal.com