What is the significance of bees in Blade Runner 2049?

Question

I watched Blade Runner 2049 and while it was gorgeous there were a few things that left me scratching my head:

In one scene, K (Ryan Gosling) is walking through Las Vegas and find a dozen apiaries full of bees. The scene is beautiful, but never explained. I can't imagine that such a detailed movie with so much thought given to each shot has this for no reason. What's the meaning of this scene?

Answer 1

I interpreted this scene two ways, though I'm not sure the writers intended the second.

1. In the original movie, Deckard asks Rachael what she would do if a wasp landed on her arm. She responds immediately that she would kill it; the desired human response. In the new movie, when a bee lands on K's arm, he doesn't kill. K stares at it fascinated. This to me was the most outright indication that K was not Deckard's kid. Rachael is used as a plot device to blur "what it is to be human." She was a replicant that, by all rights, was indistinguishable from a human: she had empathy, memories, and functioning reproductive organs. She basically was human.

So this scene overwhelmingly tells me that K wasn't the same as Rachael, and isn't her child. This scene takes place at the peak of the script where the audience is supposed to believe he is the child, about to confront his dad, so this scene is a subtle nod to the original and a hint to the audience that he is not the kid.

2. Bees have been used as air quality control in German airports and have been shown to detect and function as bio-sensor for certain types of radiation. In the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the radiation moves around through radioactive dust, so the bees could be Deckard's way of monitoring air quality and radiation levels

Answer 2

I just watched the director's explanation and – as I expected although I've not yet seen the film – he intended it to be a playful sign of hope in the face of climate change and endangered species.

Murphy: How did you decide that he would come across bees?

Villeneuve: There are a lot of problems with bees in the world right now. They are disappearing, so the fact that here you can see those creatures still alive and still present, was for me like a little spark of hope in this dystopian universe.
_{-New York Times, 2017-10-02, Denis Villeneuve Narrates a Scene From ‘Blade Runner 2049’, by Mekado Murphy}

For background, this is one of many articles available about bees in the face of climate change and how they are endangered.

Answer 3

Although I am sure Livrecache has the right answer, it might be worth mentioning that bees sometimes appear in some of Philip K. Dick's other works so it could also be slight homage.

• The Hanging Stranger - Is a short story about Bee People replacing humans.

• Cosmic Puppets (revised from A Glass of Darkness) - Is a novel about people who were part of an erased town, who come to remember and two characters have a small proxy war where both characters can only fight each other by using insects and some animals including bees, moths, cats, goloms, spiders, snakes, etc

• Valis - Novel about a lot of things pertaining to God and surveillance, but features mechanical floating bee & fly cameras.

Answer 4

Livrecache's answer would seem to be definitive, based on the Director's comments.

This technique of integrating current issues is a hallmark of speculative fiction, and mirrored in the use of grubworms as a major food source in 2049. [See: "Starving People Should Eat Bugs", Business Insider] Concerns over human over-population and food scarcity have resulted in speculation that insects will be an important food source in the future.

In terms of inspiration for the inclusion of bees as a symbol of hope:

• I wouldn't be surprised if this device was inspired by The Road

In Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic allegory, which shares themes relating to humanity, at the end of the book, the Boy notices a living insect. (I believe it was a beetle.) In a world where nearly all life has died-off, the re-emergence of the insect is a sign that that the biosphere is recovering, a symbol of hope.

Answer 5

I would suggest it could be a reference to Sherlock Holmes, another famous literary character whose profession as a consulting detective (not unlike the blade runners who are affiliated with the police) set him on the heels of nefarious evildoers. In his retirement, he became a beekeeper.

Answer 6

There are excellent answers here, and all I can do is contribute a fragment of one possible interpretation (that surely pales next to those already provided, and might be purely coincidental though I'm not conivinced):

By loose analogy the bees in Blade Runner 2049 may serve as a reference to the standard tune, "A Taste of Honey", which waxes about a love that "awoke [the singer's] heart" with a kiss, and that the singer "will return" one day. This mirrors Deckard's situation, and one of the notable recordings of this song was done by Billy Dee Williams, who played Harrison Ford's character's best friend (from his youth) from the Star Wars films.

As performed by Williams, the lyrics are:

A taste of honey
Tasting much sweeter than wine
I dream of your first kiss
And then I feel upon my lips again
A taste of honey
Tasting much sweeter than wine
I will return, yes I will return
I'll come back for the honey and you
Yours was the kiss that awoke my heart
There lingers still, though we're far apart
That taste of honey
Tasting much sweeter than wine
Oh I will return, yes I will return
I'll come back (He'll come back)
For the honey (For the honey)
And you

Further examination of the "bee" motif throughout literature and movies, and how it is interpreted in psychoanalytical contexts, may shed more light on this metaphor, although even concrete evidence as to why it was chosen for the film may never tell the "whole story" of a creative process.

A letter from C. G. Jung from 1934 to an "Elined Kotschnig" (found here in Volume I of the Letters of C. G. Jung) explores how the symbol of bees may have had a particular relevance in one person's dream, but some of the themes discussed therein may be broadly applicable. Being a historic document of some note, it is also not inconceivable that this letter itself may have had some direct or indirect influence on the film's use of the metaphor.

Answer 7

Bees are known for being sensitive to the environment.

While it's suggested, when Kay has the wooden horse examined, that Las Vegas is toxically radioactive and uninhabitable, the presence of bees tells us that it is actually safe for human habitation, as further proven by Deckard living there.

Whether that's just for the audience's benefit, of whether Deckard raises them to serve as his "canary in a coal mine" for that purpose... who knows?