In the new movie The Rivals of Amziah King, which opened in theaters last week, Matthew McConaughey plays the titular role of a beekeeper fighting against threats to his honey business. Big-name actors are often surrounded by a supporting cast. But in this case, McConaughey shares the screen with some tiny co-stars.

In fact, more than a million bees were used throughout the filming. And the bees’ success in the spotlight came thanks to thorough training from some Alabama beekeepers.

Though the movie takes place in Oklahoma, the film was shot in Alabama. Filmmakers reached out to Foxhound Bee Company in Irondale for advice on working with bees.

“The director Andrew Patterson did not want any of the cast to wear bee suits at all,” said Adam Hickman, Foxhound’s founder and lead beekeeper. “No gloves, no suits, no jackets, no veils, nothing.”

Although the crew would wear bee suits, the actors would have no protective clothing. The filmmakers had another big request.

“They wanted a promise that the bees are not going to sting,” Hickman said. “I was just like, ‘I cannot promise you that they aren’t going to sting.’ If I were having a golden retriever on set, I’d probably have a different answer.”

Bee boot camp

Hickman said working with more than a million bees without any of the usual safety equipment required professional guidance. So he organized a team of local beekeepers to train the cast and crew before production began. The beekeepers built an apiary with 34 colonies of bees for the movie set.

”Before we even had our first day of shooting, the camera guys, production team, they all came out to our bee yard and we suited up,” Hickman said. “The director was basically helping them understand how to shoot bees. How do bees respond when you open a hive and then also how do bees respond when you’ve been in the hive too long. There’s the yin and yang of opening a hive.”

Unlike a wasp or a hornet, Hickman said, honeybees don’t want to sting. That’s because they’ll die immediately. Bees will only sting when they feel threatened. With that in mind, the beekeepers taught the cast and crew how to interact calmly and confidently with the bees.

“The expectation is when you open a hive, it will act like a Looney Tunes cartoon,” Hickman said. “The cloud of bees will just shoot out of it and they’ll chase you down the street. But in reality, when you open a hive, they’re very calm. They notice you, but you can work in a way where you’re not interfering with them.”

After two weeks of training, the cast and crew felt comfortable working with the bees. And the bees went about their business.

For the most part.

”At the very, very end, we got done with training,” Hickman said. “We took off our veils and we stepped maybe 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. And this is a day before we were gonna start shooting.”

The producers pushed the bee-heavy shoots to the end of filming to reduce the chance of more stings. But if any of the beekeeping training failed, there was a plan.

“Apparently my hands and arms looked like McConaughey’s, so they had a backup costume for me with his jewelry and his ring and his shirt,” Hickman said. “If everything went south, I was supposed to be like the hands guy.”

In the end, McConaughey performed each scene without a hitch. When the movie wrapped, there were only five bee stings through the entire production thanks to the preparation, training and advice from Hickman and his team.

Tricks of the beekeeping trade

One tactic the beekeepers used to manipulate the hives was to only have nurse bees.

“[It] is a very, very young bee that is only responsible for feeding the larva in the hive and taking care of the queen,” Hickman said. “So they are unlikely to sting.”

These nurse bees were also Italian honeybees. They’re the most common bee in the U.S. and known for their gentle demeanor.

The beekeepers kept a close eye on the weather because bees respond to changes in barometric pressure. Much like humans, changes in the weather can make bees irritable. Hickman said shoots were rescheduled if storms were in the forecast.

Another trick is using a smoker.

“When you open the hive, naturally they’re gonna set off alarm pheromones,” Hickman said. “And if you put smoke in the air it makes it harder for them to communicate with each other.”

The bees think their house is on fire, Hickman said. They gorge themselves on honey, basically packing their bags to leave. The actors put smoke on their hands to prevent bee stings.

One of the most impressive tricks happens in the last scene of the movie with actress Angelina LookingGlass: a “beekeeping beard.”

The beekeepers put the queen bee in a tiny plastic cage hidden on LookingGlass. They also sprayed her with 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.

While the human actors may have received top billing in The Rivals of Amziah King, the bees certainly stole the show.

To learn more about Foxhound Bee Company, visit their website.

October baseball has a way of exposing teams’ weaknesses. For the Brewers, one of the biggest questions (as they steam toward the postseason) is what happens if Christian Yelich and William Contreras remain below-average hitters. Both players were expected to be major offensive contributors heading into the season, but if they can’t provide that production when the games matter most, the Brewers will have to find other ways to score enough runs to win. That puts significant pressure on the rest of the lineup to perform, especially the younger guys and the players farther down the batting order.

Even in the absence of offensive production from the two highest-paid position players, the lineup looks good at the top. Jackson Chourio, Brice Turang, and Jake Bauers are all having excellent seasons. Andrew Vaughn is, too, but would probably only appear high in the order against a lefty. Still, he could find crucial at-bats coming his way against right-handed pitching in October if Yelich and Contreras continue to struggle. 

So, the top of the order isn’t the main problem. It’s the depth of the lineup that must be questioned, if the postseason started today. Rookies Luis Lara and Cooper Pratt have performed admirably to this point, each having their own highlight moments—while struggling, too, as rookies do. They shouldn’t be heavily relied on in the postseason, because this will be their first taste of the playoffs. Yelich and Contreras, by contrast, have been there before and won games. Obviously, any production from the rookies is welcome and will be needed, but that doesn’t answer the question of whether the team can win without their top bats making noise.

If Yelich and Contreras remain poor at the plate, the Crew will need a step up from two hitters, in particular: Joey Ortiz and Sal Frelick. Ortiz struggled mightily last season, finishing with a slash line of .230/.276/.317. Those same struggles showed themselves again this season, as he possessed a .561 OPS through his first 170 plate appearances. June 16 is when things changed. Pratt was called up to play shortstop, and Ortiz shifted over to third base to replace Luis Rengifo, who was jettisoned. Since then, Ortiz boasts the second-highest OPS on the team, among players with at least 100 plate appearances during that stretch. It should be noted that his best stretch of play in the big leagues came in 2024, where he played third base primarily. Ortiz could be a key bat at the end of the order come October.

Frelick is a little harder to feel good about, in the short term. After putting up a good 2025 season (finishing with a .756 OPS), Frelick regressed this year. He’s slashing .236/.301/.330, with only 4 home runs, and has spent a long stint on the injured list with a shoulder injury. How much Frelick will play down the stretch will be intriguing, with Chourio, Lara, and Garrett Mitchell slated in the outfield most days. However, Frelick has postseason experience under his belt, and (like Ortiz) he has the potential to provide good at-bats at the bottom of the order when current players are struggling.

Despite all of this, it doesn’t seem likely that the Brewers will go far in the postseason without Yelich and Contreras performing up to expectations. They’ve performed very well so far this season without those two guys contributing regularly, but the offense has stuttered for stretches this year, and that can’t happen in October.

The real question is what they can do about it. Contreras will be in the lineup no matter what, as the starting catcher. He’s still a solid defender, and while Gary Sánchez has had a good year, he won’t be in the starting lineup unless a lefty is pitching for the opponent. Yelich may be a different story. Could they relegate their highest-paid player to the bench in the playoffs? It doesn’t seem like that will happen, but eventually, something has to give. Yelich is a designated hitter at this point of his career, and anyone can fill that spot. If he continues to struggle, Vaughn, Sánchez, or one of the other bench bats may find themselves in that spot come playoff time.

When Yelich and Contreras produce, the Brewers are a significantly better team. Will that happen by the end of the year? Who knows? But if it doesn’t, what do you think the Brewers should do about it?

“I’m coming back. Here we go.”

With those six words, Carlos Alcaraz bent the tennis universe back his way Thursday, as he heralded his return to the sport after a four-month absence because of a wrist injury.

Alcaraz, the seven-time Grand Slam champion who has been out since April, said he will return at the U.S. Open in a collaboration post with soccer transfer figure Fabrizio Romano, and even saw fit to throw in the Italian’s catchphrase: “Here we go.”

The 23-year-old Spaniard is defending champion in New York. Assuming his wrist stays healthy during the next week, he will look to renew his rivalry with world No. 1 Jannik Sinner there — but Sinner is yet to confirm his participation after withdrawing from this week’s Cincinnati Open with a right knee injury.

Alcaraz is also yet to formally confirm if his comeback will include the singles event. The main draws get underway Aug. 30, but Alcaraz may be on court sooner than that. The U.S. Open still has three wild cards to hand out for its mixed doubles tournament, which runs Aug. 24 through Aug. 26, including the qualifying event. The tournament will require a decision from Alcaraz on the mixed event in the next day or so, but his singles participation does not have to be set in stone until the draw on Aug. 27.

Alcaraz could pair with Serena Williams, a megastar and the greatest player of the modern era, to form a tantalizing duo in the mixed event. But Grand Slam singles tennis packs the sport’s stiffest test, with the men having to play best-of-five sets instead of the best-of-three format that they play during regular tour events. Coming back for a Grand Slam without playing a warm-up event is the ultimate jump into the fire.

Alcaraz has been managing tenosynovitis, an injury in which fluid accumulates in the sheath that protects a key tendon in the wrist. The injury has kept him out of two Grand Slams this year, with the Spaniard and his team taking a cautious approach to managing the kind of ailment that tennis players fear most. Alcaraz pulled out of the French Open a full month before it started, and withdrew from Wimbledon nearly six weeks out.

His latest withdrawal, from Cincinnati, was much closer to the start of the event, a sign that his comeback was nearing. Now it is in full view. As Alcaraz himself would say, it appears, here we go.

This move is in keeping with Alcaraz, the sport’s biggest star other than Novak Djokovic, the greatest men’s player of all-time and, even at 39, a true rival up until very recently. Dramatic; perhaps risky; and also filled with wild possibility — that Alcaraz might prove great enough to get up from his couch and walk into the gym and then the practice court, before rocking up to one the sport’s biggest tournaments and walking away with the trophy.

“Tennis needs Carlos,” Sinner said at Wimbledon.

Alcaraz’s absence has been an especially acute blow to the men’s game, which has banked on him and Sinner to provide another one of the sport’s classic generational rivalries over the next decades. No one else won a Grand Slam title from the start of 2024 through this year’s Australian Open.

Assuming he plays singles, Alcaraz will be the No. 3 seed behind Sinner and Alexander Zverev, who prevailed in the French Open and made the final of Wimbledon, losing to Sinner. That means Sinner and Alcaraz could wind up on the same side of the draw and meet in the semifinals rather than the final, as they did last year in New York, London and Paris.

There is some historical precedent for what might go down. Two years ago, Alcaraz had an arm injury that forced him to miss some of the clay-court tuneups ahead of the French Open. He spoke of knowing intellectually that his arm was fine, but struggling to trust that playing the way he wanted to play wouldn’t re-injure it, even though doctors told him he was safe.

He won the tournament.

‘It’s wonderful for the sport’

Analysis from senior tennis writer Ava Wallace

To get the obvious out of the way: It’s wonderful for the sport that Alcaraz and his energy, game style and variety are back. Aside from some intriguing stories cropping up in the past few weeks, men’s tennis felt heavier while he was gone, laden by both injuries and top players disappointing themselves, unable to fully take advantage of his absence at the Grand Slams.

The injuries remain, including, possibly, a lingering knee issue for Sinner. But with Alcaraz comes a renewed sense of lightness.

As for the state of Alcaraz: He has missed enough tennis that it feels comfortable to assume that he isn’t rushing back from his wrist injury. The fact that he withdrew from the Cincinnati Open and will be coming into the year’s final Grand Slam having not played competitive tennis since April 14 also suggests that he might not be overly concerned with bringing the hammer down on the rest of the field at the U.S. Open … Even though he probably could.

With those two assumptions — and they are just assumptions — comes one possible one conclusion: Alcaraz just wants to play.

If that is Alcaraz’s line of thinking — test the wrist out, get the competitive juices back flowing, play some real tennis for the benefit of his mental wellbeing as much as anything — that makes perfect sense, and everyone, including Alcaraz himself, might then adjust their expectations accordingly. The 23-year-old has never missed this much time in his young career, and the rust could fall off with one match or he could struggle to reach the level at which he’s used to performing.

Carlos Alcaraz’s tennis was at its most creative and potent during his title run at last year’s U.S. Open. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)

Either way, as long as he’s healthy (which is the most important factor here, especially with a wrist injury) there’s no real downside to getting back out there.

In fact, in New York, there might only be upside. The U.S. Open is the busiest Grand Slam for stars like Alcaraz in terms of sponsor appearances and fun things to take advantage of off the court, so much so that it wouldn’t be a stretch for Alcaraz to appear in New York for brand partnerships even if he weren’t playing.

Alcaraz also loves the energy at the U.S. Open. Not being in New York might occasion a smothering sense of FOMO. Missing two Grand Slams is tolerable; three feels much more dire.

As for fans’ expectations? Keep them low, as wrist injuries in tennis can be a bear to come back from, especially for someone whose game relies on his good, quick hands and a deft feel. If Alcaraz defies all norms as he usually does and makes it to the final without an ounce of touch lost in his drop shot, it’ll be even more delightful and impressive.

No one lights up a stadium as Alcaraz has the past three seasons with his dynamic, all-court game, his love of the spotlight, and his can-you-top-this flair for the improvisational. He does not win every match or every title, but his play elicits gasps from the crowds unlike anything anyone else does on the tennis court.

Those that are waiting for him in New York will hope to see all of that. How soon? Let’s see.