MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
A new Matthew McConaughey movie opened in theaters last week. "The Rivals Of Amziah King" follows a beekeeper trying to fight threats to a small-town honey business. More than a million real bees were used in the production. Lauren Linahan with member station WBHM got a behind-the-scenes look with one of the Alabama beekeepers who helped train the cast and crew.
LAUREN LINAHAN, BYLINE: Matthew McConaughey holds a queen bee between two fingers.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING")
MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: (As Amziah King) Every queen's a survivor. Always, from birth. Without her, the hive won't survive.
LINAHAN: In this scene, the bees begin to swarm around him. They eventually cover his entire hand, looking like a huge swollen oven mitt.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING")
MCCONAUGHEY: (As Amziah King) That's why wherever she goes, the whole community swarms to her. To protect her.
LINAHAN: None of that uses special effects. Just 12,000 winged co-stars on McConaughey's bare hand.
ADAM HICKMAN: They wanted a promise that the bees are not going to sting.
LINAHAN: The bees live here with Adam Hickman, a professional beekeeper. He owns Foxhound Bee Company in Irondale, Alabama. The entire film was shot in the state, so Hickman became the film's expert on working with real bees.
HICKMAN: The director, Andrew Patterson, did not want any of the cast to wear bee suits at all. No gloves, no suits, no jackets, no veils. Nothing.
LINAHAN: Unlike a wasp or a hornet, Hickman says honeybees don't want to sting you because they'll die immediately. Bees will only sting when they feel threatened. So Foxhound Bee Company taught the actors how to have calm and confident body language when handling the hives.
HICKMAN: At the very, very end, we got done with training. We took off our veils and we stepped maybe, like, 30 yards away. And one bee, just one bee, would not leave us alone and ended up stinging Matthew on his hairline, and it ended up swelling up half his face.
LINAHAN: But by the time the movie wrapped, there were only five bee stings through the entire production. That's because Hickman works with Italian honeybees. They're known for their gentle demeanor. Another trick...
(SOUNDBITE OF SMOKER PUMPING SMOKE)
LINAHAN: ...Is using a smoker.
HICKMAN: So when you open the hive, naturally they're going to, like, set off alarm pheromones. And if you put smoke in the air, it makes it harder for them to communicate with each other.
LINAHAN: So they leave the beekeeper alone. But one of the most impressive tricks happens in the last scene of the movie with actress Angelina LookingGlass - a beekeeping beard. Here's how it works. The beekeepers put the queen in a tiny plastic cage hidden on LookingGlass. They also used a spray that released bee pheromones. Soon, the colony smelled the queen's pheromones and swarmed around her. The result? LookingGlass covered in 10,000 bees from head to toe.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEES BUZZING)
LINAHAN: In "The Rivals Of Amziah King," the bees certainly stole the show. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Linahan in Irondale, Alabama.
(SOUNDBITE OF RAWAYANA SONG, "VAYANSE TODOS A MAMA (FEAT. LOS AMIGOS INVISIBLES AND CHEO PARDO)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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