Educational Media Reviews Online

The Strange Disappearance of the Bees is perhaps the most disturbing documentary to date about the rapidly declining populations of both commercial and wild honeybees. It is commonly known that bees are the major pollinators for ecosystems containing flowering plants, but few people realize that this accounts for crops that produce one-third of all the foods that humans consume. As delineated in this film, the potential impact of bee disappearances and die-offs is utterly staggering. Director, Mark Daniels, details the rapid history, international spread, scientific inquiry and frightening implications of this crisis.

Parasites, fungi and viruses were among the first reasons attributed to commercial bee disappearances—a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD). But wild populations are shown to be disappearing at an equally alarming rate. Ultimately this documentary demonstrates powerful correlation between the use of systemic pesticides and substantial disappearances of commercial and wild honeybees. The director presents a sound, methodical and scientific indictment of the industrial, modern agricultural complex and its profound impact on the health of the environment. In particular, monoculture and its reliance on unnatural food production methods is singled out as an enterprise of particular danger—not just to bees, but to the environment on the whole, and ultimately, to humankind. The reviewer highly recommends this title for academic, public, and school library collections.