Blue Honey

French apiarist Andre Frieh holds a sample of normal honey besides a blue colored one at his home in Ribeauville near Colmar, Eastern France.

I came across an article about 'blue honey' on Corriere della Sera, but my Italian is far too terrible to be able to translate it properly, so here is an article from Time about it.

French Bees Produce Blue Honey

5 October 2012

Mars Incorporated has proclaimed that “Chocolate is better in color” with its M&Ms. But French beekeepers may beg to differ on that.

Since August, beekeepers near the town of Ribeauville, in the northeastern region of Alsace, have been reporting their bees are producing blue and green honey, according to Reuters. And they’ve traced the cause back to a biogas plant that processes waste from an M&Ms factory.

Bees are apparently picking up vibrantly colored, sugary waste from the plant, operated by the company Agrivalor some 2.5 miles away from their apiaries. A statement from Agrivalor that appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde said the company would clean its containers and store waste in airtight containers to prevent bees from reaching it.

“We quickly put in place a procedure to stop it,” Philippe Meinrad, co-manager of Agrivalor, told Reuters.

France generates 18,330 tons of honey per year, making it one of the largest honey producers in the European Union. In Alsace alone, about 2,400 beekeepers manage 35,000 colonies, which produce about 1,000 tons of the stuff per year. However, France hasn’t been spared by the largely unexplained decrease in the world bee population in recent years, Reuters reported.

Gill Maclean, a spokesperson for the British Beekeepers’ Association, told the BBC that the harsh winter of 2011-2012 may have affected bees’ ability to forage. This could be a reason why the bees sought out the alternate sugar.

“Bees are clever enough to know where the best sources of sugar are, if there are no others available,” Maclean told the BBC.

Rest assured: Consumers won’t see blue honey on store shelves anytime soon. Alain Frieh, president of the apiculturists’ union, told Reuters the only similarity between regular honey and their bees’ M&M-tainted byproducts might be taste.

“For me, it’s not honey,” Frieh told Reuters. “It’s not sellable.”

Bal

The Turkish film Bal, which translates as ‘Honey’, is a 2010 autobiographical drama directed by Semih Kaplanoğlu. The third and final part of the ‘Yusuf Trilogy’, coming after Yumurta (‘Egg’) and Süt (‘Milk’), Bal explores the early childhood of Yusuf. The trilogy runs backwards chronologically. It won the Golden Bear award at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival in 2010.

At a press conference, Kaplanoğlu said of his work, ‘In these three movies, I have tried to uncover my character Yusuf through time, in a retrospective way. The first film is on his life during his 40s, the second movie is on his life during his 20s… and finally ‘Honey’ is on his life during the age of six. These films, in a way, had been a journey through a lost heaven, through purity… where people coexist with nature in harmony.’

Bal is one of the most delicately tender and beautiful films I have ever seen, with visually stunning cinematography, a dream-like natural setting in the Turkish mountaintops, and minimal dialogue. The story tells of the young child Yusuf, his incredible shyness, his wish for approval at school, his love for his father. His mother picks tea and his father harvests honey of wild bees. The defining moment happens quietly and truthfully. The mesmerising magic of this film is the mystery of him; his silence, how he can only read when he is alone, how he can only speak to his father, and even then, only in whispers. Deep and meditative, Bal is one of my favourite indie films.

I watched this film back in July 2010 at the New Zealand Film Festival and have been meaning to rewatch it when I track down the DVD sometime. I'd also like to find the first two parts of the trilogy.