Vanishing of the Bees

As far as educational documentaries go… this one hits all the right notes! As a lover of narrative film with an average concern for environmental and social activism, this film left me moved towards action and well informed. The heart of the cause is relayed naturally through a masterful blend of science, history, and spiritualism; allowing the viewer to gather the profound importance of the disappearance of the honeybee, without the "hard sell" of some other political and social documentaries that will go nameless. What the film lacks in masterful camera angles and fancy editing, it makes up for ten fold in heart and well researched information. This is the first documentary that I've seen that has literally changed my life… for the better.

If you've been paying attention to the news over past few years, you've no doubt heard about vanishing populations of honey bees throughout the world. However, the implications of this epidemic are often over-looked or fall by the wayside. Vanishing of the Bees does an excellent job of not only addressing all aspects of a complicated issue, but also explaining it in a way that is understandable to any viewer. Most of us have fallen into the habit of looking at the growing number of threats to the environment as individual issues, and as a result the average American feels any effort on their part will be so minuscule when compared to the big picture that no improvement can be achieved. What I enjoyed most about this film is how it really delved into the interconnectedness of all aspects of the environment and the impact of human subsistence patterns. The solutions offered on the jacket of the DVD and in the film can help solve the honey bee problem while improving other environmental conditions and consist of steps that anyone, anywhere can take. Vanishing of the Bees has all you could want in a documentary- interesting, educational, and inspiring!

This film, like many other noteworthy independent documentaries that aim to educate the public, is necessary viewing for everyone who appreciates the food they eat and the intricate web of life they're a part of. It's also, especially, for those who do not.

Both tragic and inspiring, the call to action of the film is clear: Honeybees are threatened by everything from the pesticides we use on our mono-crops, to the lack of plant diversity established from such crop formations, to climate change and harsh industrial shipping practices. Honeybees, in short, are exhausted and are disappearing at an alarming rate across the world. Vanishing of the Bees highlights that without them, we have no food and the balance of nature is dangerously off. Watch the film to learn and then educate those around you. Honeybees aren't just "pests" in your yard, and they don't just produce honey; they are the basic neurons of our food system, and essentially, of our life.

In recent years documentaries including "The 11th Hour" and "An Inconvenient Truth" have been visually provocative wake-up calls about our impacts on the environment. Add "Vanishing of the Bees" to the list of very important "call to action" documentaries about our environment. Will we listen to the bees?

Honeybees from just one hive can visit more than 100,000 flowers in a single day ... thus the line, "Busy as a bee!" Honeybees collect pollen full of proteins, sugars, carbs, enzymes, minerals and vitamins for food and to make honey. They also have one of the most important jobs in nature—pollination. There's no manmade alternative to pollination; without the honeybee, our food sources would be much more limited.

In recent years, this dance with nature has been stressed for reasons still unclear. From Argentina, China, France and Italy to the U.S., bees literally have been disappearing without a trace (no worker bees in the colony, and no dead bees to be seen anywhere in the area) in something that has come to be known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Bees have been "managed" in the pollination process for ages—bees were even floated down the Nile to pollinate crops. But today the process is like nothing before it. Hives are transported across the country thousands of miles to pollinate apple orchards, almond groves, pumpkin patches and blueberry fields and are responsible for $15 billion in U.S. crops.

The impacts of CCD have been so bad that to pollinate almond trees in California, bees were flown in on a 747 from Sydney to San Francisco in something that could only be described as unsustainable. The stories abound. One former commercial beekeeper from Yuma, Arizona, lost all of his bees in just two months, and the world's largest beekeeper (50,000 hives) lost 40,000 bee hives in just a few weeks.

Documentary filmmakers Maryam Henein and George Langworthy in "Vanishing of the Bees" investigate the story of how bees began disappearing around the planet and look at possible suspects, including what are called systemic pesticides.

Narrated by actress Ellen Page ("Juno" and "Inception"), the documentary follows two committed beekeepers, David Hackenburg and David Mendes. Hackenburg, who manages 3,000 hives in Pennsylvania, sounded the alarm in 2006 of huge bee losses. Mendes, a Floridian with 7,000 hives, joined Hackenburg in the search for answers to CCD, including a trip to France to meet with beekeepers.

France had problems beginning in 1994 when farmers began using a systemic pesticide, Gaucho, made by Bayer. French beekeepers banded together and protested Bayer. Ultimately, the French agriculture secretary banned the use of Gaucho, and French bees appear to have had a comeback.

Besides systemic pesticides, the filmmakers look at other potential culprits for the massive collapse, including corporate farming approaches which create vast monocultures that contradict natural order.

Food activist and author Michael Pollan lends an important voice to "Vanishing of the Bees." He says, "In one sense, it's a mystery, but in the larger sense we know exactly what's responsible—these huge monocultures that are making bees' lives very difficult and creating conditions where they're vulnerable to disease and exposed to pesticides. My take on colony collapse is that it is one of the signs—one of the really unmistakable signs—that our food system is unsustainable."

Besides building tremendous awareness of the problem, "Vanishing of the Bees" offers some practical choices that individuals can make to help save the bees. Among them are supporting organic farmers and shopping at organic farmers' markets, not using toxic chemicals in gardens and yards, growing your own gardens, replacing lawns with flowering plants and advocating for food systems that will better support bees.

This is a comprehensive, educational and well-made documentary. It should be required viewing for everyone, but especially for the younger generation who will be inheriting this mess that is our current agricultural culture. Without informative media like this film, many folks will never know about the dangers of the way most of our food is grown and the consequences that will have, until it is too late. Ironically, the big corporations mentioned in this film do not know that there are more important things than money, because bees are one of them and a thriving bee population will increase profits. See this film and then vote with your fork!