Throughout the country, honeybee colonies have been disappearing. Not only is this cause for concern over losing another species, but it devastates our plant life. “One of the most important parts of nature [is] pollination,” narrates actress Ellen Page (Juno) sweetly and sensitively over the opening of the eco-doc, The Vanishing of the Bees, as the list of crops that rely on the honeybee is a long one.
Filmmakers George Langworthy and Maryam Henein follow beekeepers David Hackenberg and Dave Mendes as their livelihoods are threatened by their bees’ departures from the hives, positing, “Bees are an indicator of environmental quality; when the bees are dying, something is wrong.” Fighting tears, puzzling over the reason, Mendes fears: “This is beyond us.”Steady shots capture the flights of the colonies in startling detail so that the big, inelegant viewer watches in amazement how a bee flickers its wings, pulls the pollen from the petal with static electricity, and holds it to its fluff. Shot with whimsy, these moments achieve artfully the goal of portraying the bees as beautiful, enduring creatures.
But these shots are interspersed clumsily with less inspiring graphics reminiscent of high school biology videos along with disjointed stories about the strange science of bees before really delving into the mysteries surrounding their disappearance. For a moment, we’re taken to a hippy dippy place by a scholar of gods and goddesses, who teaches us about the relationship between bees and humans, how once they were magical and prophetic, seen as an omen and that their female-driven society teaches us something about the need for balance. That we must honor the body of the earth as mother is part of it; that the word “medicinal” comes up multiple times might have something else to do with this digression.
Before getting to the bottom of why the bees are taking off, we get really intimate in one scene when we meet a bee breeder who knocks out a Queen, opens up her lady business, and knocks her up with boy-bee-juice. How she extracts that is another mystery we don’t get to explore. It’s probably better for everyone that way.
Alas, the suspected culprits are revealed, and it’s not a surprising discovery but an important one. At times dense and didactic, this is a documentary with its heart in the right place, offering pragmatic solutions and changes we can make to bring these buzzing nomads back to the hive.
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This coverage is part six of six reviews Poor Taste provided for the Whole Foods Market “Do Something Reel” Film Festival. The festival, a traveling collection of six films aimed at raising awareness of environmental and food issues, launched at the beginning of April and is being shown in theaters across 70 U.S. cities. For a list of show times near you, visit: “Do Something Reel” Screenings
