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September/October 2010 Conscious Media
What Are the Bees Telling Us?

by Vivian McInerny

Honey bees around the world are mysteriously dying.

The scope of the problem is sobering: pesticides weaken bee populations, monoculture effectively starves them, chemicals used to kill bee-eating mites result in the breeding of super mites, and then entire colonies of bees suddenly die.

Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?, a new documentary film by Portland-based filmmakers Taggart Siegel and Jon Betz, investigates the declining bee population and how you can “be the change” in creating a solution that’s in balance with nature.

Siegel's previous film, The Real Dirt on Farmer John, was a huge grass-roots success, earning rave reviews and 31 film festival awards. Siegel was looking for his next documentary subject when something he'd read years earlier kept buzzing in his brain.

“It was this quote attributed to Albert Einstein,” Siegel says, “but it was later disputed that Einstein even said it: ‘If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.’”

Whether Einstein said it or not, Siegel was terrified. He focused his lens on bees to uncover the mystery of colony collapse disorder.

“About 40 percent of the food we grow is pollinated by bees,” he says. “Our lives depend on them, but we haven't been taking good care of bees or other pollinators.”

The filmmakers weave an unusual and dramatic story through the heart-felt struggles of commercial beekeepers, backyard beekeepers, food activists and scientists from around the world. They juxtapose conversations about the global crisis with the mysterious, almost magical workings of the beehive. 

Images of attempts to strengthen bee populations through artificial insemination and high fructose corn syrup feed look like the stuff of mad scientists. But the camera also captures the innocent enthusiasm of a biochemist in Switzerland enraptured with the wondrous insects, and a gentle bee gatherer in Portland who saves swarms from exterminators.

Queen of the Sun leaves viewers with a sense that big problems can be solved with small solutions.

Queen of the Sun debuts in Portland on Sept. 17 at the Hollywood Theater (check local listings for additional dates). The film launches nationally in Ashland, Eugene, Seattle and other cities on Earth Day on April 22, 2011. Visit www.queenofthesun.com.