Humans have valued bees for their honey for thousands of years – and economists have long admired bees for their cooperative work ethic, too. But few of us, whether economists, honey-lovers, or both, have quite appreciated just how much the honey bee has been industrialised – and the simple yet radical invention that made that industrialisation possible. As Tim Harford explains, it is a sign of just how far the modern market economy has penetrated that it now reaches deep into the heart of the beehive.

Producer: Ben Crighton
Editor: Richard Vadon

(Image: Bee keeper lifting shelf out of hive, Credit: MIlan Jovic/Getty Images)