Month: January 2013

Movie Review: Queen of the Sun

The movie “Queen of the Sun” is a documentary released in 2010 and directed by Taggart Siegel about the current epidemic of the North American honeybees: Colony Collapse Disorder. It also explores the honeybees’ prominence in mankind’s history through vivid imagery and detailed explanations. It explains the dangers that an exponentially decreasing population (30% annually, in fact) of the North American honeybee can have on agriculture and the world’s population itself. After explaining the potential causes of Colony Collapse Disorder and the symptoms it causes to bees (drowsiness, loss of sense of direction, death), Gunther Huak explains that “Colony Collapse Disorder is the bill we are getting for all that we have done to the bees.” The documentary explain the effects that monoculture (planting the same crop over many acres of land) has had on the honeybees and how Americans are now forced to ship bees from New Zealand in order to have enough bees to pollinate farmers’ fields. The mixing of foreign bees with native bees has been causing native bees to be exposed to unknown viruses, which has also contributed to the decline in honeybee population. The movie concludes with some of the things that regular citizens can do to help the honeybee crisis. This includes planting plants that attract bees, keeping a shallow basin of water of bees to drink out of, and becoming a backyard beekeeper. Overall, I would rate this film 5 out of 5 because it effectively conveyed the urgency of helping the bees and had beautiful cinematography. “Queen of the Sun: What are the bees telling us?” should be shown to every citizen in America.