In this visually dazzling talk, Jonathan Drori shows the extraordinary ways flowering plants — over a quarter million species — have evolved to attract insects to spread their pollen: growing ‘landing-strips’ to guide the insects in, shining in ultraviolet, building elaborate traps, and even mimicking other insects in heat.

Pollen goes unnoticed by most of us, except when hay fever strikes. But microscopes reveal it comes in stunning colors and shapes — and travels remarkably well. Jonathan Drori gives an up-close glimpse of these fascinating flecks of plant courtship.

Taken over the 4th of July Weekend 2011 in the beautiful San Luis Valley, Colorado.

I know this movie is made by Nokia as some kind of an ad, but it’s a beautiful movie about urban beekeeping and staying connected to nature and the food we eat. So I thought I’d share.

Nokia – HK Honey from The Silentlights on Vimeo.

Hong Kong is home to more than 7 million people. Amongst the high rise apartments, product designer Michael Leung founder of HK Honey, has created his own space bringing nature back into the metropolis one box at a time.

HK Honey is an organisation of Hong Kong beekeepers, artists & designers who aim to communicate the value of bees to the human food chain & the benefits of locally produced honey. With a network of bee farms and a design studio, Michael and HK Honey harvest local honey & design products and services relating to urban beekeeping.

Directed by Kiku Ohe. (www.thesilentlights.com)

Produced by Exit Films as part of Nokia’s E7 Success Redefined campaign. (youtube.com/nokia)

We recently did a honey tasting with Thomas Allen, a wine instructor at the Cook Street School of Fine Cooking in Denver, and invited Ryan of The Adventurous 500 to film it. Below is the result from his website. Ryan was also nice enough to share an “extended” version of the video with us and we’ll share that soon.

She’s doing some amazing work.

This video was recently posted on TED and I thought it was great enough to share here. It’s a talk by Dennis vanEngelsdorp, who is the Acting State Apiarist for Pennsylvania’s Department of Agriculture, studying colony collapse disorder — the alarming, worldwide disappearance of worker bees and Western honey bees.

Dennis does a great job conveying his passion for bees and beekeeping.