By Courtney Potter
The latest installment of National Geographic’s incredible, Emmy® Award-winning Secrets of franchise is almost here! Hosted and narrated by BAFTA and Emmy-winning National Geographic Explorer Bertie Gregory, Secrets of The Bees uses groundbreaking filming technology to reveal the extraordinary world of bees. With the expertise of entomologist and fellow National Geographic Explorer Dr. Samuel Ramsey, the series—executive produced by National Geographic Explorer and Disney Legend James Cameron—uncovers their astonishing architecture and intelligence, unlocking their secrets and featuring never-before-filmed moments...
“For its fifth anniversary, Secrets of turns its lens to one of Earth’s smallest yet most vital heroes: bees,” Cameron recently said. “Far more than pollinators, bees are socially complex, fast-thinking individuals and the most important insects on our planet. Their impact on the natural world and humanity is immeasurable, and we’re only just beginning to see how extraordinary they truly are.”
Secrets of the Bees airs on National Geographic on Tuesday, March 31, at 8/7c, with all episodes on Disney+ and Hulu beginning Wednesday, April 1. In the days leading up to the big premiere, D23 had the amazing opportunity to sit down with Ramsey—who not only brings his entomology expertise to the series but was also one if its producers—for a chat about his fascinating background and an exclusive look behind the scenes.
D23: Hi Dr. Sammy! Thanks for chatting today... We’re curious—how did you get into entomology in the first place, and interested in bees specifically?
Dr. Samuel Ramsey (SR): I have been interested in entomology for a long time, but I can't be one of those people who say, “Oh, I’ve had a lifelong interest in insects.” No, it started out as me being terrified of them. I thought they were the most despicable, disturbing creatures on the entire planet to the point of having nightmares about them regularly! And then my parents felt that it was time for me to get over this. It was an irrational fear. My mom told me people, “Fear what they don't understand.” She took me to a library, parked me in the entomology section, stuck some books in my hand and was like, “Learn about them—and then you won't be afraid of them anymore.” And here we are now, I am an entomologist and I am absolutely obsessed with these creatures. I told my parents when I was seven, quote, “I want to be an entomologist when I grow up.”
What's really so fascinating there is that the primary objects of my fear were bees. Bees and wasps—their capacity to sting just seemed like it was something that couldn't possibly have a good reason. Like, why do you need to be that mean? [laughs] Why is an entire section of your body been weaponized, where you're flying around just jabbing people with it? And it turns out they have a really good reason. They have this incredibly valuable resource in honey that they're protecting. And honey is one of the most viable things, biologically, because usually it's really hard to get to carbohydrates, but it's impossible to get carbohydrates that will never spoil. Carbohydrates are wanted by so many different creatures—from bacteria to fungi to other organisms—that you expect that it's going to spoil pretty quickly, the way that fruit will spoil on the ground on the forest floor or in your refrigerator. But they've found a way to preserve honey in such a way that it has such high sugar content that bacterial and fungal cells can't grow in it, they die in it. As a result, they have an incorruptible food source that can last hundreds, even thousands of years without spoiling. And so they need a really good way to protect it, or they would be robbed blind in seconds.
D23: Wow—just a few minutes in and we’ve already learned something! So now that you’ve decided to become an entomologist; you’ve gone to school and everything... how did you become a National Geographic Explorer, and how did you get involved in this particular project?
SR: That part is always so funny for me to consider because I've been obsessed with National Geographic since I was a kid. And I'm sure a lot of us can remember the first time we saw one of those yellow rectangular magazines and how it was a window into a world that we otherwise would not have had access to. Because of being that kid, being obsessed with these bees, there's this picture on my Instagram of me sitting on this huge stack of the magazines that I had when I was younger. And it was for that specific reason that I did not believe the National Geographic Society when I received an email saying that through their Wayfinder program, they were looking for people who embody the ethos of the society and they feel like I'm that person, they want to induct me the society. I was sure it was spam. I deleted it immediately. [laughs] Moved on about my life... and I had to receive a call while conducting research on honeybees in Thailand! I had to receive a phone call from them directly before I would even believe it.
And it was such a crazy moment to then have that experience be one where just months later, I'm contacted by the society saying, “We have a great opportunity for you. We know that you are the ‘bee guy,’ and we want somebody who is an expert on this subject for a documentary—to serve in the capacity of doing some science advising. And we also really want you to take a role in shaping what this documentary looks like, so we want you to produce this documentary with us and everything that that entails.” Mind blown. I never thought that I would be doing precisely this—but the opportunity for me to communicate science and do one of my favorite things, tell people about insects in a way that is really going to resonate with them, it's just been a dream come true.
D23: How long have you been working on Secrets of the Bees, all told?
SR: Three years! When they first asked me to be a part of this, I definitely thought that it was going to take a while—but I had no idea how much time goes into actually producing and creating a documentary. The ideation parts of it... James Cameron, of course, is the [executive producer] for Secrets of the Bees, and the process of him ideating on how this is all going to look, along with the head cinematographer, Alastair McEwen—and all the work that they put into figuring out how we're going to capture of these different, crazy shots because they wanted to make sure that people could see the world from the vantage point of the bees, because of the ways that that will embed interspecies empathy in people's hearts for them to know what it's like to actually be that bee. And then for us—the individuals who were able to serve in the role of being producers in this documentary—figuring out what parts of the story we want to tell. And then for me personally, and the unique roles that I got to play as a scientist and also working on the music for this documentary. I've truly seen so many different ways that this whole thing has come together—it's been really exciting, but it is not something that happens overnight!
D23: We’re sure this is difficult to answer, but do you have a favorite moment from the making of this project? Something that really stands out?
SR: Oh gosh, I could choose a lot of different things... for instance, the fact that these organisms are so smart that they've also developed play as an aspect of their lives. So you'll see in one of the scenes of the documentary that the bees have the opportunity to go in pursuit of a food source. There's a food source right there, there's sugar water, and evolutionarily our expectation is that the bees are always going to go with whatever it is that is going to keep them alive—they're going to go after that food. But instead, they end up in this room playing with a bunch of balls that are painted purple and they start rolling balls to each other, jumping on top of the ball and rolling around on it. It’s just this level of delight and whimsy that also helps us understand that these organisms are not robots; they're not just sitting around making sure that they can fuel their power cells. They have complicated brains and deep inner lives, and that is something that I hope will inspire people to protect these organisms.
D23: What do you hope audiences take away from this installment of the Secrets of franchise?
SR: Well, the Secrets of series has been going on for years. We've looked at the Secrets of the Whales, the Secrets of the Elephants, the Secrets of the Penguins, Secrets of the Octopus, and we have learned so much about these organisms—but you'll notice that there's something that links them all together. They are creatures that we are very familiar with. Everybody who sees a picture of a whale or an elephant or a penguin or an octopus is going to know exactly what they're looking at. And that level of familiarity sometimes leaves us with the false impression that we understand all that there is to know, or at least the most important things that there are to know about these creatures.
When I sat down with the rest of the team for Secrets of the Bees and started talking with them about things that we need to film and things that are truly secrets of these organisms, they were constantly shocked by the things that I said to them. “We’ve been reading about bees for months in preparation for this documentary; we had no idea they did that! We had no idea that they were capable of doing that. We had no idea that could live in that circumstance.” And it's these moments that I feel like are really going to cause people to see bees with fresh eyes. I love that—because that will also help us recognize that we are stewards of the world around us, and we need to protect these organisms because we have created a lot of the problems that they're dealing with. We have to make sure that we're at the center of driving the solutions to those problems...
Check out National Geographic’s Secrets of the Bees on Disney+ and Hulu beginning April 1!