Tree-beekeeping Chronicles

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“Autumn Again in Polesia”: a film about the living tradition of forest tree beekeeping in Belarus

 

The new auteur film “Autumn Again in Polesia” tells the story of a Polesian tree beekeeper, his son and the bees, who together are discovering an ancient forest craft and the subtle world of relations between people and nature. The film presents forest tree beekeeping as a living tradition of Belarus, which in 2020 was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Viewers are invited on a slow, attentive journey into the autumn forests of Polesia – to log hives high in the trees, old tools and the living connection between generations.

 

At the heart of “Autumn Again in Polesia” is one of the quietest yet strongest stories in contemporary Belarus: how a father and son walk into the forest to look at the bees and learn to live with nature not through exploitation but through respect and responsibility. The action unfolds in late autumn in Polesia, when a real bear is looking for its den, and a contemporary tree beekeeper wakes his son with the words: “Oh, my boy is awake – let us go and look at the bees.”

The film’s protagonist is a man for whom this is already his eleventh autumn in Polesia. He first came to these forests in 2014, to his teacher Vasil, an experienced tree beekeeper, and since then, as he himself says, he has “caught the forest illness”. This is not a medical diagnosis but a state of soul: when you feel an irresistible pull towards the forest and the bees, when you can no longer walk away from this way of life. The audience sees how this “illness” is passed from elder tree beekeepers to the filmmaker, and from him to his son.

 

In the film, forest tree beekeeping is not shown as an exotic attraction for tourists or as “dark beekeeping”, but as an original cultural form of keeping and caring for bees in natural conditions – in traditional hives and log-hives high up in the trees, in living forests and wild nature. The film introduces viewers to the unique vocabulary and tools of tree beekeepers:

• the leziva, a woven climbing aid used to ascend to the hive stand;
• the douzhnia and snjot – the little doors into the bees’ world;
• the lazben – a bast-made carrier for honey;
• the smoker with smouldering punk, an old knife and the bortnik’s axe.

 

The central sequence of the film is the autumn inspection of the log-hives, which tree beekeepers themselves call their annual exam. The filmmaker and his son climb up on the leziva to the hive stand, open the douzhnia and listen to how the bees hum: some “complaining” about a poor year, others keeping silent, holding within them combs full of honey and wax. Parallels with fishing or mushroom picking arise naturally here: for some, “looking at the bees” is the same as catching fish or gathering mushrooms. Only instead of a basket there is the lazben, and instead of luck there are the strict rules of forest husbandry.

 

The film places special emphasis on the ethics of the tree beekeeper. He has no right to take all the honey: one third, at most half, is for the human being; the rest must remain in the upper part of the log-hive for the bees, for winter and spring. If necessary, he will repair the roof, patch up a mouse hole or the traces of a marten, and make sure the bees have a warm “forest house”. In one episode the filmmaker jokingly calls himself “a modern bear” – a man-bear who takes the place of a predator, but does not destroy the nest and does not take the last of the honey. In this way, ancient legends about shape-shifters and the Neuri are reinterpreted through a contemporary theme: human responsibility towards nature.

 

Another important line running through the film is the connection between generations. Viewers do not see a classic “master–apprentice” scheme but a living story about a father and son who together gather punk for the smoker, search the house for where the leziva has been hidden, laugh when they forget the knife and genuinely worry when they realise they have forgotten the bread. The bread and grandmother’s handwoven towel are laid under the hive stand – as the forefathers did, to honour the bees, the forest and those who came before us.

 

The film shows:

• real log-hives high up in the trees, not props in an open-air museum;
• the leziva, lazben, douzhnia and other tools that have hardly changed over the last few centuries;
• the direct, unhurried process of “looking at the bees” – without staged scenes or instructional commentary.

 

In this way, “Autumn Again in Polesia” allows us to see traditional forest tree beekeeping in Belarus as a living practice that continues to evolve and to be passed on within families and communities. The inscription of this tradition on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020 is mentioned in the film not as a formal status, but as confirmation of its global cultural value.

 

The online premiere of “Autumn Again in Polesia” will take place on 11 December 2025. The film will be available to watch on YouTube

 

 

If you care about living traditions and would like to see Polesia not through tourist brochures but through the eyes of a person who truly lives with the forest and the bees, we invite you to join this autumn journey. Turn the sound up, give yourself time to slow down and simply be for a while alongside the bees and the forest.