Orchids and Bees Prepared for Broadcast - BBC Filming at Vallarta Botanical Garden Neil Gerlowski - Vallarta Botanical Gardens
go to original August 14, 2016

BBC producer Victoria Bromley and cameraman Kevin Flay at work in the Vallarta Botanical Garden. Photo: Neil Gerlowski

Humans aren't the only ones who apply perfume for their amorous intentions. Male bees of the tribe Euglossini exert enormous efforts to assemble unique personal colognes to attract females. They do so by bathing themselves in the fragrances of certain flowers and even have special pouches on their hind legs to collect aromas which their mates apparently find irresistible. Their main sources of "odoriferous compounds" are orchids in the subtribes of Stanhopeinae and Catasetinae, whose constituent species are exclusively pollinated by male euglossine bees which fly from as far away as 10 kilometers in hunt for the right smell.

Another group of nature enthusiasts just flew a little further to catch all of this on film. The British Broadcast Company (BBC) sent a crew from London to the Vallarta Botanical Garden including a producer, researchers and cameramen. They worked with the Garden staff and volunteers for an entire week to film native Mexican orchids and their special pollinators.

With an average of 14 hours of work per day, they left with hours of film including time-elapse sequences of blossoming orchids and high-speed aerial bee battles along with fragrance capture and the associated incidental pollination which benefits the orchids.

These many hours of footage will be edited down extensively during production for maybe just a few minutes of magnificent and action-packed video in the upcoming BBC documentary series under the working title of "Mexico, Nature's Carnival."

The dramatic high-resolution productions that the BBC does so well provide excellent connections to the general public with the astonishingly resplendent phenomena of nature. Their coverage of orchids and orchid bees will undoubtedly attract a whole new audience of aficionados to these delightful plants and their equally fascinating pollinators.

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