Vanishing of the Bees

If anyone can watch this documentary without being scared out of their minds, they need to be smacked back to reality. I say this in jest of course, but seriously- the reason why we are in the situation we are in concerning honey bees (and thousands of other similar topics) is because of people's lack of caring. Vanishing of the Bees does a great job of laying out the problems with commercial beekeeping, the strange phenomenon of billions of bees disappearing, what other countries are doing, and what we can do here.

Honey bees have been looked at as prophetic for millennium; as the bees goes, so goes humanity. If this is true, then we could be in for some major problems. Although the documentary states over and over again that there is no reason for the massive amounts of bee disappearances, it also focuses on the reasons for bees disappearing, which is kind of odd. We're introduced to a number of larger beekeepers, some smaller organic one's, and beekeepers from as far away as Europe.

Much of the first half of the movie focuses on the ill moves of commercial beekeepers. The fact that almond growers were complaining about the lack of honey bees to pollinate their crops led the US government to import honey bees from Australia, via a 747. The farmer we are introduced to in Florida ships his bees to California, back to Florida, up the coast to Maine, down to Boston, and then back to Florida every year. Many big breeders make their own queens by separating a female bee, pinching something (I forgot this part), and then reintroducing it to the hive. This increases their profits, but greatly harms and confuses the bees. Although the blame cannot be put wholly on the beekeepers – honey being shipped from China (with dozens of other ingredients including milk and high fructose corn syrup) is selling for pennies on the dollar – these practices, we're told, surely contribute to the diminishing of bee populations.

After being confronted with these mind numbing practices of beekeepers, we're taken to France where we learn that the bees dying off probably doesn't have anything to do with this. France experienced the same problem as the US is experiencing, only it happened a half a decade before. After much studying, they learned that pesticides being sprayed by nearby farmers were killing off these populations. Protests occurred, government was harassed, and finally laws were passed banning certain harmful pesticides. Here in the US, we're told, that the EPA is in charge of making such decisions. Unfortunately, when the EPA is looking for information on pesticides, it has the pesticide industry write the report. Surprisingly, nothing has been done. In France, within a year of these poisons being banned, the bees returned as healthy and in as large of numbers as before. Seems like maybe there is an answer to, "what's happening to our bees."

Without bees, we don't eat. It's as simple as that. The pesticides being used all over the world not only kill bees, but also harm the human population. The companies – like Monsanto – who invented these pesticides also invented things like Agent Orange; chemicals that have been used to wipe out millions of innocents in times of war. Although having killed millions, we're now told (and mostly believe) that they are harmless to us and our animals. We are offered a solution though- keep bees! As someone in the documentary said (I believe it was Michael Pollen), "instead of one beekeeper with 60,000 hives, we need 60,000 beekeepers, each with one hive. GO GET YOURSELF A HIVE!

It's a shame that documentaries like this fly under the radar while multi-billion dollar movies with no educational value at all, are seen by the majority of the population.

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!

I run a small organic apiary in Washington State. I took a year long course in bee keeping and read every book out there before I even started with my first colony. I attended all of the local Bee Keepers Association meetings and kept a journal of all of my findings during my hive inspections. I sought out natural remedies for some of the issues I had heard are common in bees in this region, I thought I was pretty well versed on the subject of organic beekeeping. AFter watching this film, I realized there was so much that I didn't know! So much that I never recognized many things to be problematic! I recommend all young and old with an interest in bees, eating healthy produce, the Earth to watch this film. It was an eye opener for me and it gave me the right kick to do what I can to make this world a better place for our bees and our future kin. I have since then accepted a position on the Board of Directors for the local bee keepers group and am trying with all my might to change the thought process of our local bee keepers! Thank you for further opening my eyes and making this wonderful film!

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.

Vanishing of the Bees is a thoughtful and informative look at the potential reasons behind colony collapse disorder (CCD), in contrast to so many documentaries which are alarmist and sensationalist. As an amateur beekeeper I am interested in bees, of course, but I saw this film to better educate myself on where our food comes from. After watching "Vanishing" I felt that I had gained a common-sense understanding of how a few agricultural practices in the developed world can be strongly linked to CCD. The film also left me wondering why more isn't being done to change our current practices. I think this film is a must-see for anyone interested in food, farming, or bees.