Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This silent clip shows a beekeeper harvesting honey from commercial beehives. Footage of bees swarming around a hive is followed by a scene showing the beekeeper using a ‘smoker’ to blow smoke onto the bees before removing and replacing frames from a hive. The clip uses intertitles to describe ‘Stripping the frames’ and placing the frames in a rotating drum or extractor to separate out the honey.

Educational value points

• The clip shows some of the equipment used in the harvesting of honey. The bee ‘smoker’ is a device that, when containing a smouldering piece of wood, is used to make the otherwise alert bees docile while the frames are collected. An uncapping knife is used to remove wax cappings from the frames, where the bees store the honey, and finally an extractor, developed in 1866, is used to separate the honey from the wax comb.

• People have harvested honey since ancient times but it was not until the 17th century that beekeeping techniques such as ‘smoking’ were developed. By the mid-1800s hives with removable frames were in use and the wax ‘comb’ into which the bee deposits the honey had been invented. By the end of the 19th century queen bees were being bred and sent in the mail to enthusiastic apiarists.

• European colonists introduced the honey bee, the subject of this clip, to Australia in 1822. Australia’s diverse national flora and pristine environment ensured that the species adapted and propagated successfully. Today the beekeeping industry in Australia, which produces honey, beeswax and royal jelly, is estimated to generate about $60–65 million per annum.

• According to the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council, there are more than 9,000 apiarists, or beekeepers, in Australia, producing about 30,000 tonnes of honey each year. There are about 673,000 registered hives in Australia and apiarists with a minimum of 200 hives – considered to represent a commercial beekeeping operation – operate about 467,000 of these hives. Between 9,000 and 12,000 tonnes of honey are exported from Australia each year.

• Home movies have historically been regarded as amateur and of interest only to their creators, their immediate family and friends, but they have now gained the status of historical documents. Home movies have increasingly been sought out to help reconstruct history, for example in documentaries and museum displays. They are a record of the lifestyles, cultures and traditions of everyday Australians, and can also provide diverse perspectives or alternative histories.

• The footage exemplifies typical features of the home movie genre. The camera is hand held with resulting instability of the image. Editing has been achieved ‘in camera’ simply by turning the camera on and off and the content is shown in real time. Leisure activities such as those shown in the clip were common themes for early home movies, as they are today.

• The clip uses intertitles, a silent-film device designed to provide information and narrative material or to explain to the audience what is to follow. Intertitles are static images of printed text that the filmmaker has inserted in the footage.