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City of Bees -- A Children's Guide to Bees by Frejas Born Film and Sound

2006  DVD   30 minutes   Produced in Denmark with decided European slant.

A Review by Dana Stahlman and 6 young people Kindergarten thru grade 6 the target population of this film.

General Comments:

This DVD is promoted as "A Children's Guide to Bees".  Lesson Plan Correlated to National Standards with a Photo Gallery.  (Does the U.S. have a national standards for beekeeping lessons or films?)

The price of this DVD is listed as $49.99 by www.choicesvideo.net.  

On showing this video, I found the children quite engrossed in the film.  The photography is outstanding with some nice close up video.   It is definitely juvenile and not intended for Adult audiences.

Evaluation:

Positive comments

• Has good attention holding qualities for children
• Great photography
• Covers the bee year, good and interesting pictures of bees, & bees gathering various materials,
• Explains value of bees in pollination. the wax making process in building cells,

Negative comments

• I was driven nuts with the statement "Fly like a bee" repeated over and over and over.
• European style hives - looks like Scandinavia.  Multi-color hives not seen in the U.S. in large winter cases.
• Use of the term flower juice for nectar.   May be appropriate for young people but not adults.
• Use of European standards for temperature-- example 34 degrees to describe temperature inside the city.
• Weeks are used to describe egg to emergence for queen, worker, and drone.   Three weeks for drone to emerge.   This doesn't jive with the actual time of 24 days.  3 weeks for the worker is okay but the 14 days for a queen is again off the mark.
• States that the queen begins to lay eggs immediately after mating flight and continues to lay eggs for 7 years.
• States that honey is stirred for many weeks to get thicker.

Final comments:

Overall -- good for the target age group.

Some facts are very generalized and do not match up with scientific fact. 

Over priced.   A very expensive DVD for value received.