Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 3092 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| WINGED WORKERS | 1949 | 1949-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Colour Sound: Silent Duration: 6 mins 4 secs Credits: Cyril and Betty Ramsden Subject: Agriculture |
| Summary A documentary made by Betty and Cyril Ramsden, this film shows how bees pollinate different flowers. The couple were semi-professional filmmakers filming both for pleasure and taking on commissions from companies such as the Yorkshire Evening Post. |
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Description
A documentary made by Betty and Cyril Ramsden, this film shows how bees pollinate different flowers. The couple were semi-professional filmmakers filming both for pleasure and taking on commissions from companies such as the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Title-Winged Workers
The film opens with shots taken in close up of a bee at the centre of a flower retrieving pollen. The film continues with more shots of other bees in a garden, also retrieving pollen from many different varieties of flower....
A documentary made by Betty and Cyril Ramsden, this film shows how bees pollinate different flowers. The couple were semi-professional filmmakers filming both for pleasure and taking on commissions from companies such as the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Title-Winged Workers
The film opens with shots taken in close up of a bee at the centre of a flower retrieving pollen. The film continues with more shots of other bees in a garden, also retrieving pollen from many different varieties of flower. In some of the shots, all the detail of their bodies can be seen. Some are covered in pollen. The film continues in this manner until the end.
Title-The End
Context
This is another example of the talent, dedication and imagination of Leeds amateur filmmakers, the Ramsdens. Made in 1949, not long after the end of the war, they have made a wonderful early wildlife film in Kodachrome colour observing, in remarkable detail for the time without any specialised equipment, the behaviour of many of the species of bees as they feed from flowers, open and closed. It may even feature one of the two species that have subsequently become extinct.
Betty and Cyril...
This is another example of the talent, dedication and imagination of Leeds amateur filmmakers, the Ramsdens. Made in 1949, not long after the end of the war, they have made a wonderful early wildlife film in Kodachrome colour observing, in remarkable detail for the time without any specialised equipment, the behaviour of many of the species of bees as they feed from flowers, open and closed. It may even feature one of the two species that have subsequently become extinct.
Betty and Cyril Ramsden made several wildlife films among their extensive collection. Their love of nature is particularly in evidence here as they show a sample of the 250 species of bees, mainly bumble bees – of which there are 24 species at present – but also a honeybee of which there is just the one species. Bumblebees are usually larger, and are always covered with dense hair, while honey bees – which prefer open flowers because of their short tongues – can be mistaken for wasps. Since the film was made large scale changes in agriculture has resulted in far fewer flowers, leading to a sharp decline in their numbers. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust aims to reverse this trend by encouraging more wildflowers. |
